A car bomb exploded in the northern Syrian city of Manbij on Monday, killing at least 15 people. This attack marks the second bombing in the city within three days and is the deadliest in Syria since the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in December.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which occurred about 30 kilometers from the Turkish border. According to the civil defense rescue service, the victims included 14 women and one man, with another 15 women wounded. The victims were identified as agricultural workers, and the death toll is expected to rise.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) condemned the attack, blaming Turkish-backed factions for using bombings and violence to intimidate the local population. Manbij, a city that has switched hands multiple times during Syria’s 13-year civil war, was taken from the US-backed SDF by Turkish-backed groups in December.
The SDF had previously seized Manbij from the Islamic State group in 2016. On Saturday, another car bomb in the same city killed four civilians and injured nine others, including children, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.
Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power on December 8 following a swift offensive by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was recently declared Syria’s transitional president.
