Suicide blast adds to bloodshed in Syria

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb yesterday near a Syrian security compound in a remote, predominantly Kurdish town, killing at least four people, state media said, in a new sign that the country’s largest ethnic minority might be drawn into a widening civil war.

Opposition activists said at least eight Syrian intelligence agents were killed and several dozen people wounded in the attack in the northeastern town of Qamishli, over 700km from Damascus.

Syria’s more than 2m Kurds, long marginalised, have largely stayed out of the fighting, though some have participated in protests against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the president.

The leaders of Turkey and Egypt, among Assad’s main foreign foes, sent stern warnings to the regime and its allies, in speeches to Turkey’s ruling party.

Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian president, said: “We will be on the side of the Syrian people until the bloodshed ends, the cruel regime is gone and Syrian people reach their just rights.”

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Syria’s allies Russia, China, and Iran to end their support for Assad, warning that “history will not forgive those who stand together with cruel regimes”.

Turkey has given shelter to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and Turkish soil has served as a crucial logistical centre for rebel fighters since they captured several Syrian border crossings with Turkey over the summer.

Also over the summer, Syrian troops left several towns and villages in the Kurdish northeast, possibly to divert forces to overstretched troops fighting in hotspots elsewhere. The regime ceded de facto control to Kurdish fighters who began exercising a degree of autonomy unheard of before.

However, the regime has maintained a security presence in Qamishli, which abuts the Turkish border, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for yesterday’s blast. Several previous suicide attacks in Syria were claimed by a Syrian militant group, the Al-Nusra Front.

Syrian state media said the bomb killed four people, and wounded dozens.

The observatory said eight Syrian intelligence agents were killed and at least 40 people wounded in the blast.