At least 24 people have been killed and many more wounded across rebel-held parts of Syria after a weekend of violence that included several car bombings.
Eleven people were killed and 30 others injured in the town of Azaz, when a car bomb exploded Sunday near a building used by Turkish-backed fighters as administrative headquarters. On the photos of the scene are black smoke rising from the wrecked remains of the car, damaging buildings and covering a street with debris from the explosion.
On Sunday, another car bomb went off at a checkpoint near the city of Beza’a, killing five fighters of the cooperating group of Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and injuring four more, military sources said.
Ahmad Ali, 33, passed by when the Azaz car bomb exploded about 100 meters away.
‘It sounded like thunder, the doors and glass of the buildings around me shaking and breaking. “As a first reaction, I was on the floor and I was temporarily deaf to the loud noise,” he said.
‘It happened in such a busy place near the market and the building where people come to register births and marriages … I saw the burned car and rescuers trying to help, and the corpses. It was a horrible day. ‘
After a decade of war, Syria is now roughly divided into three zones of control.
About 3 million civilians, the majority of whom are afraid to return to their homes in areas held by the government, as well as the remnants of the Syrian opposition, Turkish-backed Syrian troops and Islamic groups, are now in the northwest corner plugged in. of the country.
The oil and wheat-producing north-east is controlled by the Kurdish-led, US-backed forces, but most of Syria is now ruled by Bashar al-Assad, who has recaptured all major cities in the opposition country. with the help of Russia and Iran.
Sunday’s attacks contributed to an already violent weekend in parts of Syria outside the control of the government: On Saturday, the de-facto Turkish-controlled city of Afrin was shaken by a car bomb in which eight people, including four children, were killed.
Kurdish security forces opened fire on pro-Syrian government demonstrators in Hasekeh, a city controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), on Sunday, killing one and injuring four others.
No group claimed the explosions in Azaz and Afrin, but the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has ties to the SDF, is believed to be responsible for what, according to Syrian civil defense statistics, is a growing number of IEDs. and car bomb attacks in both cities.
Afrin was evacuated from its majority Kurdish population following a 2018 attack on the city by Turkey, while Azaz serves as the administrative headquarters of the Turkish-backed forces. Islamic State dormitories are also linked to bombings in the area.
The Syrian Civil Defense, a voluntary rescue group operating in rebel parts of Syria, also known as the Withelms, says it has responded to 13 explosions in the northwest of the country since the beginning of the year.
The increase in violence so far in 2021 contributes to the already serious winter problems in northwestern Syria: an increase in cases of coronavirus is breaking an already broken healthcare system, and heavy rains and floods have 67,600 people living in displacement camps, touched.