Car bomb kills two in Turkish-controlled Syrian town

A car bomb attack on Sunday killed two people and wounded five in a Syrian border town controlled by Turkish forces, Turkey's Defence Ministry said.

The explosion occurred in Tal Abyad, which has been held by Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies since Ankara launched a military operation against a Kurdish militia in October 2019, AFP reported. The town has since seen several car blasts that have killed dozens of civilians.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. Still, the ministry blamed the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara sees as a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its western allies, though the West worked closely with the YPG in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.

"The perpetrator was captured alive, along with another terrorist who came to the area with a bomb-rigged vehicle for a second attack," the ministry said, as quoted by Reuters.

Since Turkey's offensive, there have been multiple car bombings in the border region blamed by Ankara on the YPG in which numerous civilians and Turkish soldiers have been killed.