An ammunition depot explosion in Syria kills at least 7 people and injures scores

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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — An explosion at an ammunition depot in northern Syria on Thursday killed at least seven people and wounded scores, rescuers and monitors said.

There was no official statement as to what has caused the blast in Idlib province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the explosion took place at an ammunition depot.

The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, also said the blast in Idlib, in the town of Maarat Misrin, struck an ammunition depot.

“Our teams are working to recover the bodies of the dead, treat the injured, and extinguish fires at the site of the massive explosion of an ammunition depot,” the White Helmets said in a statement.

The state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV referred to the explosion as involving “remnants from the war,” likely shorthand for arms and ammunition left over from Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war. The TV report did not give more details.

Syrian Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management Raed al-Saleh said in a post on X that teams were transporting the wounded and dead despite “continued recurring explosions in the area, which are hampering response efforts.”

The state-run news agency, SANA, reported that along with the seven killed, 157 people were injured, citing health officials.

Syria is struggling to recover since the war ended with the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive in December. During the war, which killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of of 23 million, Idlib was an opposition-held enclave.

The country’s current interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa formerly led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an insurgent group based in Idlib that spearheaded the offensive that unseated Assad.