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Car bomb hits near church in Qamishlo, Syrian Kurdistan

Car bomb hits near church in Qamishlo Syrian Kurdistan
Car bomb hits near church in Qamishlo, Syrian Kurdistan

2019-07-11 00:00:00 - Source: Iraq News

A car bomb exploded near Azra church in the Christian-majority neighborhood of Wasta in Qamishlo, Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), July 11, 2019. Photo: ANHA

QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— Twelve people were injured on Thursday when a car bomb exploded near a church in a Christian-majority neighborhood of Qamishlo in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), northern Syria, ANHA news agency reported.

The bomb was caused by a booby-trapped vehicle in the neighborhood of Wasta in Qamishlo near Azra church, according to media outlets in Rojava.

The metal gate of the church was slightly dented by the blast, but the building otherwise emerged intact, AFP reported.

There was no immediate claim for the attack, which Syrian state television said wounded 11 people and damaged nearby cars.

The blast caused significant material damage, but no fatalities were reported.

The security forces were deployed to the venue and ambulances evacuated the wounded to the hospital for treatment.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said only seven people were wounded, and that three among them were in critical condition.

In June, a car bombing near Kurdish security offices in Qamishlo city wounded seven civilians, including a child, the Observatory said.

A car bomb killed 11 people and wounded many others on Thursday in the Syrian Kurdish city of Afrin which Turkish forces and Ankara-backed Syrian mercenary fighters captured from Kurdish fighters in 2018, medical sources and a war monitor said.

Syria’s Kurds have led the US-backed fight in the war-torn country against the Islamic State group, which continues to claim attacks despite its territorial defeat earlier this year.

These have included arson attacks on wheat fields and deadly car bombs.

The jihadist group still maintains a presence in the country’s vast Badia desert, as well as in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast and east.

The Kurdish PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ considered the most effective fighting force against IS. The YPG, which make up the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces expelled the extremist group from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.

In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish and Arab authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.

U.S. has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). But in December 2018 U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria.

Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | AFP | nrttv.com | hawarnews.com

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