Car bomb kills 10 in Latakia

Date

9/3/2015 7:54:53 AM

(MENAFN- The Peninsula)People looking at the wreckage of vehicles at the site of a car bombing in Latakia yesterday.

Damascus: Ten people were killed and dozens wounded yesterday in a rare car bombing in Syrian city of Latakia the coastal bastion of President Bashar Al Assad state media said.

Latakia has been largely spared the violence that has wracked Syria since an uprising against regime rule erupted in March 2011. “Terrorists detonated a car laden with many explosives at noon (0900 GMT) in Hamam square in Latakia killing 10 people” the official SANA news agency reported.

It said the explosion had also wounded 25 people and caused significant damage to nearby cars and buildings. State television aired footage of charred cars with their windows blown out and firefighters attempting to put out blazes in the city.

SANA reported that officials had discovered two cars full of explosives in Latakia on Tuesday and “arrested those responsible”.

The car bomb that went off yesterday was the biggest of its kind in Latakia since the war broke out said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “This is rare for Latakia city which is usually hit by rockets” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Rebel fighters entrenched in the hilly terrain around Latakia regularly fire rockets and other missiles into the city.

Abdel Rahman said the car bomb detonated on the northern edges of the city and “wounded dozens including four or five in critical condition”.

Many Syrians displaced by violence in neighbouring regions have taken refuge in Latakia province and some businesses have moved to the relative safety of the area.

The province is home to Assad’s ancestral village and support for his government remains strong there. Rebels and jihadists have long made the region a target in part for its symbolic value as a regime stronghold. In recent months a rebel alliance that includes Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front has been battling to capture the Sahl Al Ghab region that borders Latakia.

AFP

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