Iraq News

Explosion kills 15 in Idlib’s Jisr al-Shughur

A powerful explosion on Wednesday (April 24th) killed 15 people, most of them civilians, in a region of north-west Syria controlled by Tahrir al-Sham, AFP reported.

A building of at least four floors collapsed in the Idlib province town of Jisr al-Shughur, another building had partially caved in, and surrounding buildings appeared on the verge of collapse, an AFP reporter said.

Thirteen civilians were among those killed in the blast, the cause of which was not immediately clear, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The explosion hit next to the market," killing 15 people, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He earlier said the explosion could have been the result of a car bomb or a vehicle carrying explosives that detonated.

But bystanders and the head of the local civil defence unit, Abdelwahab al-Abdu, said they did not know what caused it.

Abu Ammar said he felt the "huge" blast from his home about 50 metres away.

"We ran to the place of the explosion and saw the rescue teams trying to pull out the wounded," he said.

There were "people still alive under the rubble, and lots of body parts on the ground", he said.

The Idlib region is under the control of Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party, an extremist group dominated by Uighur fighters, has a large presence in Jisr al-Shughur.

The "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) has sleeper cells in the wider region.

Do you like this article?

0 Comment(s)
Comment Policy * Denotes Required Field 1500 / 1500