Five people died and nine were hurt on Wednesday when a weapons depot blew up in Kafr Takharim, a town in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, regional sources said. A thick plume of smoke hung over the town afterward.
Speculation started almost at once. Some pointed to a US or coalition airstrike on militant targets. Others thought of Israel, which has been bombing Syria often lately, although its jets seldom range that far north, close to the Turkish border.
Government security forces told AFP something less dramatic: the depot went off by accident. Every person killed worked at or near the storage site. A Syrian official said the blast began in a warehouse full of missiles and ammunition and “occurred due to work underway.”
AFP also described what was circulating online. Pictures showed heavy destruction, fire and damaged farmland, and video showed shrapnel landing among shops and residential buildings.
Not the first
Idlib has seen this before. Authorities said four people died in August when a weapons depot exploded on the outskirts of the city.
The New Arab put the pattern down to Syria’s circumstances. After 14 years of brutal conflict, it reported, arms and ammunition stores often go unsecured, and explosions at them are common. Bombs have also gone off while people strip them down to sell as scrap metal.
