On April 19 afternoon, a booby-trapped car exploded in the Turkish-occupied town of Sajjo in the northern Aleppo countryside.
Local sources said that the car bomb was parked at the center of the town, which is located near the border of Turkey. The highway to the Bab al-Salama border crossing, 1 km to the north, passes through the town.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that three people were killed and six others were injured in the explosion. However, local sources placed the death toll at five with at least 70 others wounded.
This was the second explosion in Turkish-occupied areas in northern Aleppo on July 19. 13 people, including Turkish-backed militants, were injured when a heavy improvised explosive device blew up in Afrin earlier.
Kurdish forces are usually blamed for such bombings by Turkish sources. Nevertheless, ISIS remains the main suspect. The group’s cells stepped up their attacks in Turkish-occupied areas in the recent weeks.
Such attacks will continue to threaten Turkish-occupied areas in north and northeast Syria as the Turkish military and its proxies seem to be unable to improve security there. Some activists even claim that Turkish-backed militants are facilitating some of these attacks.
