Carbomb kills 7 civilians in Syria’s Idlib

IDLIB/ANKARA

A car bombing killed at least seven civilians and injured 30 others in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Saturday, according to the White Helmets civil defense agency.

The bombing struck “Time Plaza” area in the province, White Helmets chief in Idlib Mustafa Haj Yusuf told Anadolu Agency.

No group yet has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Located in northern Syria near the Turkish border, the Idlib province was declared a "de-escalation zone".

Controlled by anti-regime armed groups, the province has been under intense airstrikes for the last two months.

Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since March 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. While UN officials say hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, Syrian regime officials say the death toll is closer to 10,000.

Reporting by Esref Musa and Adham Kako:Writing by Mahmoud Barakat