19 killed in Syrian bus bombing
A roadside bomb has targeted a bus in central Syria, killing 19 people, reports say.
A Syrian official at the governor’s office in Homs province says the explosion in the village of Jbourin also wounded four people on the bus.
The village is predominantly Alawite, a minority sect to which President Bashar Assad belongs, but it also has Christians and Sunnis. It was not immediately clear why the bus was targeted.
Syria’s civil war, which has left more than 100,000 dead since the crisis erupted in March 2011, has taken increasingly sectarian overtones. Most of the rebels trying to overthrow Assad belong to the majority Sunni sect.
Meanwhile al-Qaida-linked gunmen have captured a Syrian town near the Turkish border after heavy fighting with a rebel group, an activist group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stormed the town of Azaz, forcing members of the Northern Storm Brigade to withdraw.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the clashes broke out when ISIL fighters tried to detain a European doctor they accused of taking pictures of their positions in the area. The German doctor escaped and is in a safe location, Mr Abdul-Rahman added.
He said three rebels and two jihadis were killed in the fighting that broke out yesterday and continued until after midnight.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaida-linked gunmen have captured a Syrian town near the Turkish border after heavy fighting with a rebel group, an activist group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stormed the town of Azaz, forcing members of the Northern Storm Brigade to withdraw.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the clashes broke out when ISIL fighters tried to detain a European doctor they accused of taking pictures of their positions in the area. The German doctor escaped and is in a safe location, Mr Abdul-Rahman added.
He said three rebels and two jihadis were killed in the fighting that broke out yesterday and continued until after midnight.
