19 killed, 15 injured in Syria car bomb explosion

A car bomb exploded on the outskirts of a northern Syrian city on Monday, killing 19 people, all but one of them women, and leaving 15 wounded, hospital workers said. The car detonated next to a vehicle carrying mostly female agricultural workers on the outskirts of Manbij city.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion. It was the seventh car bomb explosion in Manbij in just over a month, said Munir Mustafa, the Deputy Director of Civil Defence.

Manbij in northeastern Aleppo province continues to witness violence even after the downfall of President Bashar Assad in December.

Turkish-backed factions, Syrian National Army, have clashed with the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The factions took the city from the SDF in early December during the insurgency that toppled Assad.

“The continued attacks on Syrian civilian areas while people are trying to recover from the effects of the war deepens their humanitarian tragedy,” Mustafa said. A car bombing in Manbij on Saturday killed four civilians and wounded nine, state news agency SANA reported.