Fuel truck bomb kills dozens in rebel-held Syrian border town

Scores of people were killed and dozens more were wounded after a fuel truck exploded in the busy centre of a rebel-held town near Syria’s border with Turkey on Saturday.

The explosion occurred outside a courthouse in the town, some just 7km from the Turkish frontier.

Around 14 of the dead were rebel fighters or courthouse guards, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Dozens more had severe injuries, said the Observatory, which monitors the violence in the country.

In unsourced comments, Turkey's privately owned Dogan news agency said a car bomb planted by Islamic State was responsible.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the militant group, while Azaz has recently been targeted by the so-called Islamic State.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency cited a doctor in Azaz as saying at least 60 people had been killed and more than 50 wounded.

The latest blast is the worst since a nationwide ceasefire - brokered by Russia and Turkey. IS is not included in the truce, which has mainly held.

Syria's nearly six-year war has created a patchwork of areas of control across the country, and Azaz is a major stronghold of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA). It has been contested by competing factions, with the Turkish government seeking to ensure that neither IS nor the Kurdish rebels it opposes manage to take control of it.

Thousands of people displaced from elsewhere in the province have settled in Azaz. They include those from Aleppo, which the government took from the rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad late last year.

Anadolu said 23 wounded people had been taken by ambulance to Kilis hospital, one of whom subsequently died.

Southeast of Azaz, Turkish forces have launched an offensive to take back the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab.

In a round-up of its military operations in support of rebels in northern Syria, the Turkish military said that on Friday 21 Islamic State militants had been killed in clashes.

In a later statement, Turkey's army said that on Saturday one Turkish soldier was killed in clashes with the militants, while Turkish warplanes killed 37 militants, including three senior members of the group, in air strikes.