Publish Date: 25 November 2020 - 15:02

TEHRAN, Nov. 25 (MNA) – Twenty-nine people were killed Tuesday by explosives in three separate incidents in parts of north Syria along the border with Turkey, a war monitor said.

There was no immediate link between the two-car bombings near Al-Bab and in Afrin that killed a total of eight people, or the incident that claimed 21 lives in a minefield, France24 reported.

In the first incident, explosives planted in the car of a police chief on the outskirts of Al-Bab detonated and killed him, two other policemen and two civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Nineteen people were wounded, the Britain-based monitor added.

An AFP photographer saw the charred, mangled remains of a vehicle at the site of the explosion.

In the town of Afrin, a car bomb went off near a bakery, killing three people and wounding 16 others.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either blast.

There has been a string of attacks in Al-Bab since its capture by Turkish troops in 2017.

Several have also hit Afrin, which Turkey and its Syrian forces seized from Kurdish fighters in 2018.

Elsewhere in north Syria, a number of pro-Turkey fighters were killed overnight near the town of Ain Issa when they walked into a minefield laid by Kurdish-led forces, the monitor said.

They were among around 30 Turkey-backed combatants who had been trying to sneak into Muallaq village after sending in drones to bombard it, said the Observatory.

But they became ensnared in a minefield laid by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), killing 21 and wounding the rest.

Since then, pro-Ankara fighters have been stationed to the north of Ain Issa, and sporadic skirmishes have broken out between them and SDF.

MNA/PR