At Least 20 People Killed by Car Bomb at Rebel Checkpoint

ِِA car bomb on Thursday killed at least 20 people in northern Syria, many of them rebel fighters, Al Jazeera reported.

Dozens more were wounded when the bomb exploded near an armed opposition checkpoint near the city of Azaz, north of Aleppo. At least 14 of those killed were rebel fighters, according to the U.K-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The checkpoint was manned by fighters from the Levant Front, a faction affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and is located on the road to the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey.

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels participating in the “Operation Euphrates Shield” against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) operate heavily in the area. Turkey launched the operation two months ago with the aim of clearing Islamic State militants from near its border, as well as curbing Kurdish ambitions of consolidating territory in Syria.

Rebel factions have previously been targeted by Islamic State bombings, most recently on Oct. 6 in a blast that killed at least 29 people near the Idlib border crossing.

Taking Aleppo From Rebels Will Push ‘Terrorists’ to Turkey, Assad Says

Capturing Aleppo would help with pushing “terrorists” into Turkey, said Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Friday, Reuters reported.

The Syrian government, backed by its Russian allies, has renewed its offensive on rebel-held parts of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

“You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey, to go back to where they come from or to kill them. There’s no other option,” Assad said in an interview with Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.

More than 150 people were killed this week by Syrian and Russian airstrikes on rebel-held Aleppo, according to rescue workers. The rising death toll and destruction of Aleppo has attracted international attention, with the U.S. and France calling for a war crimes investigation into Syria’s and Russia’s actions.

Last week the Syrian military said they would reduce strikes on Aleppo, but operations intensified again after a brief lull over the weekend. Despite the U.S. suspending talks with Russia following last month’s failed cease-fire, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are meeting on Saturday for talks.

“What we’ve been seeing recently during the last few weeks, and maybe few months, is something like more than Cold War,” Assad said. “I don’t know what to call it, but it’s not something that has existed recently, because I don’t think that the West and especially the United States has stopped their Cold War, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Assad is also backed by Shiite Iranian, Lebanese and Iraqi ground troops. Sunni rebels fighting his government are backed by Turkey, the U.S. and several Gulf states. Turkey’s actions in Syria are an “invasion,” Assad said, “against international law, against the morals, against the sovereignty of Syria.”

Ending Syrian Conflict Top Priority for New U.N. Chief

Syria is the top priority for the newly elected United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, the BBC reported. He takes up the post in January.

“We have seen such a terrible level of suffering. To think that this will even get worse … I believe it is the international community’s first priority to be able to end this conflict,” he told the BBC.

Recommended Reads:

• Bloomberg: Builder-In-Chief: Erdogan’s Real-Estate Dream Drifts to Syria
• The Guardian: U.S. Rethinks Syria Policy but Further Military Intervention Is Unlikely
• Time: Go Inside an Underground Amusement Park in Syria
• Al Jazeera: ISIL Deserters Speak Out
• The Wall Street Journal: With Next President, U.S. Syria Policy Is Poised to Shift