Car bomb kills five in Syria

BEIRUT, Aug 07 (AFP): A car bombing killed five people, including three children, in a Kurdish-held town in northeast Syria on Wednesday, a war monitor said.

The explosive-rigged vehicle detonated in Al-Qahtaniya, a town in Hasakeh province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

It said the car bomb exploded near the town's post office.

State news agency SANA also reported the bombing, saying it killed several people, including children.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast but the Islamic State group routinely claims attacks in northeast Syria, despite its territorial defeat earlier this year.

Such attacks have included arson against wheat fields and deadly car bombs.

The jihadist group maintains a presence in the country's vast Badia desert, as well as in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country's northeast and east.

The SDF, backed by the war planes of a US-led coalition, announced the end of IS' self-proclaimed "caliphate" in March in the village of Baghouz, in Syria's far east.

The country's war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.