Suspected YPG car bomb kills five in Turkish-controlled northern Syria

Five Syrians, including three children, were killed by a car bomb in the Turkish-controlled Syrian town of Tal Halaf on Thursday, Ankara officials said.

The town, southwest of Ras Al-Ain, was taken by the Turkish military during its offensive against Kurdish militants in October.

Turkey's defence ministry blamed the attack on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which has ties to the insurgent Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) inside Turkey.

"The PKK/YPG terror group continues its treacherous attacks targeting innocent civilians. The child murderers this time detonated a car bomb in a residential area in Tal Halaf southwest of Ras al-Ayn, killed five innocent civilians including three children," the ministry tweeted.

Britain-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the attack but gave a lower toll of two, adding that several people were injured.

Last month, a suspected YPG car bombing killed at least 17 people after it struck a marketplace near Ras Al-Ain, a former Kurdish stronghold recently taken over by Turkish-backed rebel group.

Since Turkey's incursion into Syria's Kurdish areas beginning in 2018, groups such as the YPG militia have targeted the area with a string of deadly attacks.

Turkey's 2018 operation which aimed to push out Kurdish forces from the border areas killed scores of civilians and sparked the mass displacement of Kurds out of Afrin, which some have equated to ethnic cleansing. 

Ankara has since launched a further operation into Syria's northern border area, taking over a 32km deep "safe zone" along 480km of the Syrian side of the border.