IED attack | Explosion hits outdoors market in Al-Bab

Aleppo Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: SOHR activists have reported hearing an explosion in Al-Bab city which is under the control of Turkish-backed factions in eastern Aleppo, caused by the detonation of an IED by the engineering teams, as the IED was planted at the entrance of the outdoors market in the city. No casualties have been reported.

 

The explosion coincides with the tight security measures imposed on the entrances of the towns and cities controlled by Turkish-backed factions.

 

Yesterday, SOHR sources reported the explosion of an IED planted in a civil car parked near the “commandos school” in Afrin city on the road to Jendires in Aleppo countryside, while Turkish-backed militiamen were attempting to dismantle it. The explosion resulted in the death of two members of the civil police, while others were lightly wounded. The explosion, which also caused material damage, raised popular concern in Afrin city, as preparations were underway for celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Syrian revolution in Al-Villat street on March 19.

 

A day earlier, SOHR sources in the city of Afrin reported that Turkish intelligence ordered all the checkpoints of the proxy factions, and the checkpoints of the security forces and police, to close the entrances and exits of Afrin city from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., from March 15, until March 21.

 

According to Syrian Observatory sources, the decision was circulated to all the checkpoints around the city of Afrin, in addition to a decision preventing the entry of any media activist from outside the area to Afrin during this period, without knowing the reasons for the decision. This coincides with the third anniversary of Turkish forces’ control, supported by the proxy factions, of the city of Afrin and its surrounding areas in the north-western Aleppo countryside, and as Nowruz Day approaches.