Car bombs kill Syrian civilians in Rukban refugee camp

16/05/2017| IslamWeb

A pair of car bombs has killed at least six people and wounded several others in Syria's sprawling Rukban refugee camp near the border with Jordan, according to a rebel official and a resident. 

The first explosion on Monday went off close to a restaurant, while the second targeted the camp's market nearby.

"There are at least six civilians dead and the number is expected to rise," Mohammad Adnan, an opposition official from Jaish Ahrar al-Ashair who runs the policing of the camp, told the Reuters news agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

In January, a car bomb killed a number of people in the camp, and ISIS armed group has since launched attacks on Syrian opposition in the area.

Rukban, near the joint Syria-Iraq-Jordan border, is home to refugees and also to opposition groups, including the Jaish Ahrar al-Ashair, which fight both Bashar al-Assad and ISIS.

It was also hit by bomb attacks last year.

The car bombs came just hours after air raids hit a Syrian border town in the eastern province of Deir Az Zor and killed at least 30 people, mostly civilians, according to a monitor, which tracks developments on Syria's conflict via a network of contacts on the ground.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that more than a dozen children were among those killed when the air raids - thought to have been carried out by the US-led coalition - hit residential areas and a mosque in the Abu Kamal town.

The ISIS-linked media outlet Amaq said coalition strikes killed 15 people and wounded 35 others in Abu Kamal.

ISIS holds most of Deir Az Zor province, apart from an enclave at the center and a nearby air base controlled by Syrian regime forces. The province links territory ISIS fighters control in Syria and Iraq.

Since it broke out in March 2011, Syria's conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and ravaged the country's economy and infrastructure.

PHOTO CAPTION

Syrian refugees board a Jordanian army vehicle after they crossed into Jordanian territory with their families, in Al Ruqban border area, near the northeastern Jordanian border with Syria, and Iraq, near the town of Ruwaished, 240 km (149 miles) east of Amman September 10, 2015 REUTERS

Al-Jazeera