Five killed at blast in Syrian refugee camp near Turkey - monitor

An explosion believed to have been caused by a car bomb tore through a Syrian refugee camp at a border post on the frontier with Turkey on Thursday, killing five people, a monitoring group said.

Turkey is sheltering more than 600,000 refugees from Syria's almost three-year-long civil war and has kept its border open throughout the conflict.

Ambulances ferried the injured from the refugee camp to the southern Turkish city of Kilis, where a state hospital official said at least 40 people were being treated.

A Turkish border official said the blast near Turkey's Oncupinar border post, which sits opposite the Syrian Bab al-Salameh gate, could be felt several kilometres (miles) away, but that the border gate remained open.

Amateur video posted on the Internet showed what appeared to be three bodies under blankets. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said five people were confirmed dead and a fire broke out in the camp after the blast.

Thousands of Syrians have been fleeing the city of Aleppo, some 60 km (40 miles) south of Kilis, in recent weeks because of a campaign of improvised "barrel bomb" attacks by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Many of the displaced live at a makeshift camp on the Syrian side of the border. Thursday's blast hit this area, according to video footage.

Towns near Bab al-Salameh have also seen sporadic clashes between the rebels fighting Assad and fighters from an al Qaeda splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Also on Thursday, Syrian war planes carried out four airstrikes on rebel positions outside the southern city of Quinetra as heavy fighting between government troops and rebels raged in the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group reported. The group that relies on a network of activists on the ground also reported heavy clashes in several suburbs of Damascus, including Zamalka and Daraya, longtime opposition strongholds.
 
The Syrian army has been reinforcing its positions in Quinetra as part of an effort to dislodge rebels from the area that is near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
 
Syria's sectarian fight has spilled over into neighboring Lebanon, where clashes between Lebanese Sunnis, backing Syrian rebels, and gunmen from the pro-Assad Alawite community frequently have erupted in the northern city of Tripoli.
 
An Alawite military leader from a pro-Assad party in Lebanon was killed in Tripoli on Thursday, according to reports by Lebanon's state news agency. The killing of Abdul Rahman Diab of the Arab Democratic Party likely will deepen sectarian tensions in Lebanon.


REUTERS