Bomb kills eight in Syria

BEIRUT: A car bomb killed at least eight people including four civilians near a pro-Turkey rebel post in the northern Syrian city of Afrin on Sunday, a British-based war monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not clear who was behind the blast in the city, which was seized from Kurdish forces earlier this year. The explosion comes after the Turkish president on Wednesday threatened to launch a new offensive against the Kurdish People´s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

The Observatory said the car bombing wounded dozens, and the toll was likely to rise. "The car bomb exploded near a position of pro-Turkey fighters" in a market, killing four civilians and four fighters, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The city of Afrin was captured in March this year from the Kurdish People´s Protection Units (YPG) by Turkish armed forces and Syrian rebels supported by Ankara. Turkey accuses the YPG of being "terrorists", but the Kurdish militia also form the backbone of a US-backed alliance fighting the Islamic State group in Syria.