25 killed, wounded in explosion in Syria’s Afrin

DAMASCUS: At least 25 people were killed and wounded when a car bomb went off in Syria’s rebel-held Afrin city in northern Syria on Friday, a war monitor reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a violent explosion rocked Afrin, which is controlled by the Turkey-backed rebels in the northern countryside of Aleppo province, when a car bomb went off near rebels’ headquarters.It said that at least one person was killed while the rest are wounded, some in critical conditions.

Afrin, a predominantly-Kurdish enclave near the Turkish border, fell to the Turkish-led rebels in March 2018, which led to the displacement of thousands of Kurdish people.The area had been controlled by the Kurdish militiamen, mainly the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is regarded as a terror group by Turkey.Several explosions have rocked the city since it fell to the Turkey-backed rebels.