Beirut (ANTARA News) - A fuel truck exploded in the busy centre of a rebel-held town near Syrias border with Turkey on Saturday, killing dozens of people and wounding dozens more, several sources said.



 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 48 people, mostly civilians, were killed when the tanker blew up in front of a courthouse in the northern Syrian town of Azaz.



 Around 14 of the dead were rebel fighters or courthouse guards, it said.



 Dozens more had severe injuries, said the Observatory, which monitors the violence in the country.



 In unsourced comments, Turkeys 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.



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



 An Azaz resident who went to the local hospital told Reuters he had counted around 30 bodies laid out.



 Syrias 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).



 The FSA is an alliance of moderate rebel groups whose fighters have, with Turkish military support, pushed Islamic State militants out of the border area.



 Saturdays explosion was heard across the border in the Turkish town of Kilis, Dogan said.



 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, Turkeys 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. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

The Turkish military has said that two Turkish soldiers and two allied Syrian opposition fighters were killed in a military offensive against a Kurdish-held enclave in northern Syria.

The military statement published late Saturday said the men were killed in clashes with Syrian Kurdish YPG and the Islamic State group. Eleven soldiers and four Syrian fighters were injured.

Turkey has been battling the YPG, which it deems a terror organization, to clear Afrin in northern Syria of the group. There is no IS presence there.

According to the statement, 447 "terrorists" were "neutralized" since the beginning of the week-long operation codenamed Olive Branch. The figure cannot independently be verified because of access restrictions to the battleground.

In total, five Turkish soldiers have been killed since Jan. 20.

Several thousand people have rallied in Paris to support Turkey's Kurds and protest a Turkish military incursion into a Kurdish-controlled enclave in Syria.

Left-wing activists joined Kurdish opposition groups in Saturday's demonstration at the Place de la Republique in eastern Paris. Some waved banners denouncing Turkey's government and backing the U.S.-supported Kurdish militia, the YPG.

The demonstrators urged French and other Western authorities to take a tougher stand against the Turkish campaign. France's government has urged restraint but the protesters say that's not enough.

Violence has escalated in northern Syria in recent days as Turkish forces have targeted the city of Afrin and threatened to push further east toward the border with Iraq. Turkey says it is fighting extremists threatening regional stability.

Turkey's official news agency says a rocket fired from northern Syria has hit a house in the border province of Kilis, injuring two people.

The Anadolu news agency said the rocket was launched from the Afrin region Saturday afternoon and targeted the city center. The Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, control the enclave in northern Syria.

The private Dogan news agency said the rocket did not explode.

Turkey began a military operation on Jan. 20 against the YPG, which it deems a terror group. Since then, multiple rocket attacks have killed three people — two of them Syrian refugees — and wounded more than 20 others.

The Turkish military's chief of staff and a deputy prime minister visited the scene of the most recent rocket attack.

Syria's main opposition negotiating body said Saturday it will boycott a peace conference in Russia next week, saying it would not lead to a genuine peace track that could end the country's seven-year war.

The High Negotiations Committee announced the boycott of the Russia-backed conference in Sochi in a tweet Sunday night after a vote held in Vienna, Austria, where a U.N.-led conference was being held.

The two-day conference ended, as in many previous rounds, with accusations hurled back and forth between the two sides in comments to the press.

"The (Syrian) regime doesn't believe in a political solution and it will not believe in the future ... it only believes in the military option," Syrian opposition leader Naser al-Hariri said from Vienna on Saturday.

Russia has been steering a separate negotiating track in Astana, and now in the Black Sea resort of Sochi where the conference is scheduled to be held on Monday with the participation of some 1,600 representatives of the Syrian government and opposition.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> A fuel truck exploded in the busy centre of a rebel-held town near Syria's border with Turkey on Saturday, killing dozens of people and wounding dozens more, several sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 43 people, mostly civilians, were killed when the tanker blew up in front of a courthouse in the northern Syrian town of Azaz. 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 the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was responsible. There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the militant group.

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. An Azaz resident who went to the local hospital told Reuters he had counted around 30 bodies laid out.

Syria's nearly six-year war has create a patchwork of areas of control across the country, and Azaz is a major stronghold of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The FSA is an alliance of rebel groups whose fighters have, with Turkish military support, pushed ISIS militants out of the border area.

Saturday's explosion was heard across the border in the Turkish town of Kilis, Dogan said. Anadolu said 23 wounded people had been taken by ambulance to Kilis hospital, one of whom subsequently died.

In a round-up of its military operations over the last 24 hours in support of rebels in northern Syria, the Turkish military said on Saturday that 21 ISIS militants had been killed in clashes. Turkish warplanes destroyed buildings and vehicles in air strikes on 12 ISIS targets, it said. </s> ANKARA (Reuters) - A car bomb at a police headquarters in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast killed at least eleven and wounded dozens on Thursday, officials said, two days after Turkey launched an incursion against Islamic State and Kurdish terrorists in Syria.

The state-run Anadolu news agency blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a terror group which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy and has been involved in almost daily clashes with security forces since a ceasefire collapsed more than a year ago.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Large plumes of smoke billowed from the site in Cizre, located in Turkey’s Sirnak province bordering both Syria and Iraq, footage on CNN Turk showed. The broadcaster said a dozen ambulances and two helicopters had been sent to the scene.

Hospital sources initially told Reuters that nine people were killed and 64 wounded, but an official later said the toll was eight. It was not clear whether the casualties were civilians or police officers.

Photographs broadcast by private channel NTV showed a large three-floor building reduced to its concrete shell, with no walls or windows, and surrounded by grey rubble.

Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes launched their first major incursion into Syria on Wednesday in support of Syrian rebels, in an operation President Tayyip Erdogan has said is aimed both at driving Islamic State away from the border area and preventing territorial gains by the Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died since the rebels took up arms in Turkey in 1984.

Turkish troops fired on YPG terrorists in northern Syria on Thursday. Also on Thursday, Interior Minister Efkan Ala accused the PKK of attacking a convoy carrying the country’s main opposition party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The government has blamed the PKK for a series of terror attacks this month in the southeast. The group has claimed responsibility for at least one attack on a police station. </s> A fighter from the Syrian pro-government forces mans a riffle inside a damaged house in the recently recaptured village of Joubah during an offensive towards the area of Al Bab in Aleppo province on Friday (AFP photo)

ISTANBUL — The Daesh terror group militants have fired a rocket in northern Syria that caused symptoms of “chemical gas” exposure in 22 Syrian rebels, state media cited Turkey’s military as saying on Sunday.

The attack targeted Turkey-backed rebels who have for days been besieging Daesh-controlled town of Al Bab, a major goal in Ankara’s “Euphrates Shield” operation to push the extremists away from the Syrian side of the Turkish border.

According to the state-run Anadolu agency, the Daesh rocket attack occurred in the Haliliye area. The army did not specify where the attack had taken place.

“Twenty-two rebels were observed to have symptoms of being exposed to chemical gas in their eyes and bodies as a result of the rocket fired by Daesh,” media reports quoted the army statement as saying.

The rebels were transferred to a hospital in Turkey’s border province of Kilis on suspicion of chemical poisoning after complaining of constant sickness and severe headaches, Hurriyet newspaper reported on its website.

Turkish AFAD emergency relief teams conducted various tests on them to check for traces of chemical, other media reported.

In the last 24 hours around Al Bab, Turkish jets have destroyed four Daesh targets in the Anifah region, and one Turkey-backed Syrian rebel has been killed and 14 wounded in clashes, the military said.

On Thursday, three Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike in Syria, which the army said it believed was carried out by the Syrian air force. It happened on the first anniversary of Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet over Syria and raised fears of an escalation in the conflict.

After the air strike, Dogan news agency said on Saturday Turkey deployed low-altitude air defence systems with Stinger missiles to Gaziantep province on its Syrian border.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the air strike with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday. They spoke again late on Saturday about “Syria and efforts to resolve the humanitarian drama in Aleppo”, sources in Erdogan’s office said.

Russia is Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main military backer. Turkey backs rebels fighting to oust him.

Ankara and Moscow only restored ties, which had been damaged by November’s jet incident, in August. While they continue to pursue conflicting goals in Syria, Turkey has of late been less openly critical of Assad than in the past. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):

A Turkish official says two rockets fired from Syria hit a mosque and a home in a Turkish border town. At least 13 people were hurt.

Gov. Mehmet Tekinarslan says the rockets struck the border town of Kilis on Wednesday during evening prayers. Media reports said they were fired from the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

Tekinarslan says eight were wounded inside the mosque, two of them seriously. The second rocket hit a nearby home, where five were hurt.

Turkish TV images showed the rocket that struck the mosque had pierced through its dome. The private NTV station showed people inside the mosque frantically trying to clear the rubble.

It was the latest in a series of rocket attacks against the Turkish border since Ankara launched a military offensive into Afrin to clear it of Syrian Kurdish militiamen whom it considers to be linked with Turkey's own Kurdish insurgents.

Turkey's state-run agency says 11 people have been arrested over allegedly engaging in "terror propaganda" through social media postings about Turkey's military offensive into a Syrian Kurdish enclave.

Anadolu Agency says the group is among some 150 people detained in police operations across Turkey and accused of supporting a U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkey considers to be a terrorist group.

The report says other detainees, suspected of social media posts allegedly supporting the Syrian Kurdish fighters, were still being questioned. The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders criticized the detentions as a "witch hunt against critics."

Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, an extension of the Kurdish insurgency within its own borders. Ankara last week launched a military operation codenamed Olive Branch to clear YPG fighters from the enclave of Afrin in northern Syria.

A senior U.S. official says Washington is concerned that Turkey's military offensive in the Syrian-Kurdish enclave could distract from the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria and could be exploited by extremists to re-supply or create safe havens.

The official told a group of reporters on Wednesday that Syrian Kurdish fighters in the enclave of Afrin are not part of the U.S.-supported or trained Syrian Kurdish force that is allied with the United States in the fight against IS.

Commenting on Turkish threats to expand the offensive into the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij, the official says Washington's "number one concern is the safety and security troops in the vicinity."

Addressing Turkish complaints that the United States has not kept to its promises to take back weapons supplied to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, the official said Washington intended to "fulfil the commitment" but would not provide a time frame.

The official says the U.S. continues to be supportive of Turkey's "legitimate security concerns" and recognize their concern for security along its border.

A second U.S. official denied Turkish government claims the U.S. had delivered thousands of trucks of weapons to the Syrian Kurdish forces, saying the bulk of the supplies went to U.S. forces and also included ammunition, food and humanitarian supplies.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Some 350 Kurds burned images of the presidents of Turkey and Russia as they marched on the U.S. and Russian embassies in the Cypriot capital Nicosia to protest Turkey's "invasion" of a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria.

Waving Kurdish flags and those of the Syrian Kurdish militant group YPG, protesters chanted slogans calling Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a "fascist" and "terrorist," and called on Turkey to "get out of Kurdistan."

They also denouncing what they said was Russia's "betrayal" for allowing the military offensive to happen.

Protester Azad Baker told The Associated Press that Wednesday's march was aimed at urging European nations to use their influence in order to stop the killing of civilians in the Kurdish enclave.

He said Kurds are fighting alone without U.S. help.

Turkey's president says its incursion into a Kurdish-held enclave in Syria is progressing "successfully" and will continue until the last "terrorist" is eliminated.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday renewed a threat to extend the offensive east to the city of Manbij, which is under the control of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters. He said he plans to "foil games along our borders starting from Manbij," adding that "we will clean our region from this trouble completely."

Erdogan said that Turkish troops and allied Syrian fighters have killed at least 268 Syrian Kurdish fighters since the operation against the Afrin enclave was launched on Jan. 20. He said Turkish troops have suffered seven or eight losses.

Ankara views the main Syrian Kurdish militia in northern Syria as a threat because of its links to Kurdish insurgents fighting in southeastern Turkey. The Syrian Kurds are the main U.S. ally against the Islamic State group in Syria, and played a key role in driving the extremists from much of the country's northeast. The U.S. has urged Turkey, a NATO ally, to exercise restraint.

Syria has dismissed recent reports of chemical attacks in the war-torn country as "lies."

The United States and 28 other countries are launching a new initiative to better identify and punish anyone who uses chemical weapons, amid new reports of a suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

The U.S. says Russia, a key ally of the government, shares blame for the use of chemical weapons in Syria because it vetoed the renewal of an expert body that determined responsibility for such attacks.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that French and U.S. allegations of new chemical attacks were part of the "systematic targeting of Syria." It blamed Western countries for blocking probes and pressuring investigators after previous chemical attacks.

In 2013, the U.S. and Russia reached an agreement to remove all chemical weapons from Syria. There have been several reported chemical attacks since then.

A top Russian diplomat has accused the United States of promoting unverified reports about chemical weapons attacks in Syria in order to cloud Russia's peace initiatives.

Russia is hosting Syria peace talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi next week that some Syrian opposition figures said will run counter to U.N. peace initiatives.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview with the Interfax news agency on Wednesday that the U.S. is promoting "rigged, unverified reports" of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria to hamper Russia's peace efforts.

Ryabkov's remarks came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Moscow "ultimately bears responsibility for the victims" of a new suspected chemical attack outside the Syrian capital Damascus.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Turkish planes bombed Kurdish fighters in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria on Tuesday, killing at least 20 in a widening campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

A Turkish military statement said about 70 militants were killed in the operations inside the two neighbouring states.

The air strikes in Syria targeted the YPG, a key component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the US and have been closing in on the Islamic State bastion of Raqqa.

The Turkish raids showed the challenges facing US-led attempts to defeat Islamic State, also known as Isis, in Syria and risk increasing tension between Nato allies Washington and Ankara over Kurdish combatants who have been crucial in driving back the jihadists.

A US military officer accompanied YPG commanders on a tour of the sites hit near Syria’s frontier with Turkey later on Tuesday, a Reuters witness said, demonstrating the close partnership.

The YPG said in a statement its headquarters in Mount Karachok near Syria’s frontier with Turkey had been hit, including a media centre, a local radio station, communications facilities and military institutions.

“As a result of the barbaric strikes by the Turkish warplanes at dawn today against the YPG centre . . . 20 fighters were martyred and 18 others wounded, three of them critically,” said spokesman Redur Xelil.

Ilham Ahmed, a senior Kurdish politician who co-chairs the political wing of the SDF, said they wanted the US to provide aerial protection against Turkey.

The Turkish military said the two regions it struck around 2am (11pm GMT) had become “terror hubs” and the aim of the bombardment was to prevent the PKK sending weapons and explosives for attacks inside Turkey.

Designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the European Union, the PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state for Kurdish autonomy. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, most of them Kurds.

Turkish security sources said 13 PKK militants had been killed on Tuesday in operations backed by the air force in the largely Kurdish southeast of Turkey. Two Turkish soldiers were also killed when a roadside handmade bomb planted by the PKK blew up in Sirnak province.

Turkey has regularly bombed the mountainous border area between Iraq and Turkey where PKK militants are based since a ceasefire broke down in July 2015. But Tuesday’s raid was the first time Turkish forces have targeted its affiliate in the northwestern Sinjar area.

The PKK established a presence in Sinjar, bordering Syria, after coming to the aid of its Yazidi population when Islamic State militants overran the area in the summer of 2014 and killed and captured thousands of members of the minority faith.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will not allow Sinjar, around 115km (70 miles) from the Turkish border, to become a “new Qandil”, referring to a PKK stronghold in Iraq near the borders with Turkey and Iran.

The presence of a PKK affiliate in Sinjar is also rejected by Kurdish authorities who run their own autonomous region in northern Iraq and enjoy good relations with Turkey.

Five members of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are also deployed in Sinjar, were killed, and nine wounded in one of the Turkish air strikes, according to the peshmerga ministry, apparently by accident.

It called the attack “unacceptable” but blamed the PKK for being there and demanded the group withdraw from Sinjar. </s> A rocket attack by ISIS militants in northern Syria caused symptoms of “chemical gas” in 22 Syrian rebels, state media cited the Turkish armed forces as saying on Sunday.



The attack targeted Turkey-backed rebels who have been besieging the ISIS-controlled town of al-Bab for days. Al-Bab is a major target in the “Euphrates Shield” operation to push the extremists away from the Syrian side of the Turkish border.



The Turkish military said the rocket attack was in Syria’s Haliliye area, according to state-run Anadolu agency. It did not specify when the attack occurred.



Media reports said Turkish AFAD emergency relief teams had conducted various tests on the affected rebels for traces of chemical materials at a hospital in Turkey’s border province of Kilis.

Last Update: Sunday, 27 November 2016 KSA 11:16 - GMT 08:16 </s> A fuel truck exploded in the busy centre of a rebel-held town near Syria's border with Turkey on Saturday, killing dozens of people and wounding dozens more, several sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 43 people, mostly civilians, were killed when the tanker blew up in front of a courthouse in the northern Syrian town of Azaz.

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.

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.
Several rockets fired from Syria strike the Turkish city of Kilis, near the Syria–Turkey border, killing at least one person and injuring 13 others. Turkey blames the YPG group.