BEIRUT (Reuters) – A car bomb killed at least five people near a Syrian border town controlled by Turkish-backed forces on Thursday, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency and the Syrian Observatory, a war monitor, said.
A parked truck exploded near the checkpoint at the entrance of Tel Halef village, west of the town of Ras Al Ain on the Turkish-Syrian border, killing at least five and wounding 12 others, said Anadolu.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine people were killed and 15 wounded.
Anadolu said local security forces were examining the possibility that fighters from the Syrian Kurdish YPG, which Ankara views as a terrorist group, may have carried out the attack.
Turkey, which is allied with some rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seized control of the town last year in an offensive to push back YPG fighters.
(Reporting by Ghaida Ghantous and Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
