ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — At least six people were killed by a car bomb in the Syria-Turkey border town of Tal Abyad (Gire Spi) on Tuesday evening, according to a Syria monitor, as deadly violence in an area controlled by Turkish-backed militias continues. Three of those killed were children, while the bodies of the three remaining deceased were yet to be identfied, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Tuesday night. The explosion at the town's al-Firn roundabout wounded 15 others, with a number of the injured left in a "serious condition", the UK-based Syria monitor said. "According to Observatory sources, the blast occurred at the city’s al-Firn Square, near the “Criminal Security” building, which was turned into a headquarters of Turkish-backed factions," it added. Hawar News Agency (ANHA), a media outlet close to the Kurdish authorities in northern Syria, described the explosion as "powerful". It attributed the blast to continued infighting among the Turkey-backed proxy groups controlling the area. Turkey's defense ministry blamed the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) for the attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the deadly explosion. Ankara and its Syrian proxies launched a military operation against the Kurdish-led forces controlling the north of the country in October 2019, seizing control of a stretch of territory including Gire Spi and Ras al-Ain (Sari Kani). Scores of civilians were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced by the offensive. Gire Spi and Sari Kani now lie at opposite ends of a resulting ‘buffer zone’ under the control of Turkish-backed militias – an area prone to car bombings, shelling, and inter-militia fighting.
