A car bomb has struck near the Syrian northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 60 members of President Bashar al-Assad’s troops, activists have told Al Jazeera.
Monday’s blast, carried out by a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaeda, hit near a military complex in the town of al-Douwairinah near Aleppo’s international airport, Mohammad al-Hadi, an activist in the city, said. “The car was filled with six tonnes of explosives,” he said.
The blast was one of the largest attacks targetting regime forces. Activists posted a video on social media that purports to show the moment of the explosion. However, the authenticity of the video could not be verified.
It came hours after a car bomb attack targeting a checkpoint near a military airport in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were 20 casualties in the blast on Sunday night in the western Damascus district of Mazzeh, but did not state how many were killed or injuried in the attack.
Syrian state media confirmed the blast that occurred late on Sunday, but have not released the number of those killed and injured.
Mazzeh is an upscale neighbourhood of Damascus that houses several embassies and a military airport.
At least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria’s two-year-old conflict.
