Car bomb on Turkish-Syrian border kills 10, injures dozens
BEIRUT – A car bomb at a border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border Monday afternoon killed 10 people and left dozens injured, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anatolian news agency.
The blast occurred at the Cilvegozu Border Gate on the Turkish side of the border. It connects Turkey with Syria’s Bab Al-Hawa crossing, which has been in the hands of Syrian rebels for months.
The explosives were in a parked vehicle with Syrian license plates, the news agency reported.
Opposition activists inside Syria were divided over who was behind the attack and whether or not the target was the Syrian opposition or Turkey.
A Syrian pro-government news group on Facebook, Green Edleb News Network, based in Idlib province in northwestern Syria, reported that the attack was a targeted operation by Syrian intelligence, which planted explosives in a transport truck carrying ammunition into the country.
The group said that dozens of “terrorists†were killed in the blast. The Syrian government refers to all members of its opposition as terrorists.
The Bab Al-Hawa crossing has become one of the main arteries for Syrians fleeing the violence in their country and for aid and transport coming in. Syrians and Turks were killed in the explosion.
“The area where the blast took place is used to load aid materials to Syrian vehicles,†Adnan Korkmaz, a director for the Turkish Department of Customs, told the Anatolia news agency. “The area has been rather very crowded in the past few days.â€
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