Car bomb in north Syria kills 5

BEIRUT: A car bomb on Tuesday killed five people, mostly local police, on the outskirts of the Turkish-controlled town of Al Bab in northern Syria, a war monitor said. Explosives were planted in the car of a police chief from another district, killing him, two policemen accompanying him, and two civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. It also wounded 19 others, the monitor added. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the car bombing, but there has been a string of attacks in Al Bab since its capture by Turkish troops from the IS group in 2017. Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said it was “likely that sleeper cells of the IS group” were behind the attack. Turkey and its Syrian proxies control several pockets of territory on Syria’s side of the border following three military incursions since 2016. — AFP