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At Least 12 Killed by Suicide Bomber in Southern Syrian Town | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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People shout at government officers and police during the funeral of victims from last night’s attack on a wedding party that left 50 dead in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border on August 21, 2016., AFP


A suicide bomber killed at least 12 people when he blew himself up on Thursday at the opening of a local police station in an opposition-held town in southern Syria, opposition members and residents said.

Those killed included a member of the Western-backed opposition interim government, they said.

They said the bomber, a young man, detonated his suicide vest just as local officials were gathering to inaugurate the police station in the town of Inkhil, 40 kms north of the city of Daraa, the provincial capital.

The minister of local administration in the Western-backed interim Syrian government, Yaqoub al Amar, was killed in the explosion along with several local officials, a resident said.

Issam al Rayes, a spokesman of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, said the signs were that either ISIS “or agents of the Syrian authorities” were behind the attack.

Amaq news agency which is affiliated to ISIS cited a security source as saying one of its fighters had detonated his vest during what it said was a meeting of opposition figures in the town. It did not give a number of those killed in the blast.

Source: Reuters