Twin Daesh suicide attacks kill 15 in Syria

BEIRUT: Twin Daesh suicide attacks killed 15 people on Sunday in Syria´s northern province of Aleppo, where the militants have faced simultaneous assaults in recent weeks, a monitor said.

One attacker detonated a car bomb near the Daesh-held town of Deir Hafer, killing eight fighters with regime forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it "was carried out by fighter Abu Abdullah al-Shami with an explosive-laden vehicle".

Deir Hafer lies on a key road linking Aleppo city to the Daesh-controlled town of Khafsah, which holds the main station to pump water into Aleppo, and further east to the militant group’s de facto capital Raqa.

Residents of Aleppo city have been without mains water for 48 days after the militants cut the supply.

On Sunday, Russian and regime warplanes bombarded Daesh positions in support of Syrian troops, which had advanced to 11 kilometres (seven miles) from Khafsah, the Observatory said.

The United Nations on Sunday said 26,000 people had fled the fighting since late February, while the Observatory said as many as 30,000 had been displaced.

In a second attack, Daesh said a fighter "detonated his suicide belt" in the rebel-held town of Azaz, also in Aleppo province.

The Observatory said the suicide attack in the town "killed seven fighters and wounded several others, some of them in critical condition".

In January, a massive tanker truck bomb ripped through a market in Azaz, killing 48 people and wounding dozens, the Observatory said.

It was suspected that Daesh was behind that attack.