Multiple bomb attacks kill 2 in northwestern Syria

AZAZ, Syria

Two civilians were killed and another 22 wounded on Saturday in four simultaneous bomb attacks in northwestern Syria, according to local security sources.

The attacks were carried out by bomb-laden motorcycles at the center of the opposition-held cities of Azaz, Al-Bab, Jarabulus and Akhtarin near the Turkish border, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, but security sources believe that the YPG/PKK terrorist group was responsible for the violence.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced in the conflict, mainly by regime airstrikes targeting opposition-held areas.

Since 2016, Turkey conducted two major military operations in northwestern Syria -- Operations Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch -- to purge the region of Daesh and YPG/PKK, which is the Syrian branch of the terrorist organization PKK.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar

AZAZ, Syria

Two civilians were killed and another 22 wounded on Saturday in four simultaneous bomb attacks in northwestern Syria, according to local security sources.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, but security sources believe that the YPG/PKK terrorist group was responsible for the violence.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced in the conflict, mainly by regime airstrikes targeting opposition-held areas.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar