AMMAN, Jordan – A suicide attacker in a parked car blew himself up in an area housing security offices in northeastern Syria Sunday, killing at least four people, state media said. Syrian state television and the country's official news agency also said scores were wounded in the mid-afternoon blast in Qamishli, 700 km from the capital, Damascus. Activists put the death toll at eight and said it was expected to rise because 15 people sustained “serious wounds.” The blast targeted a police station in the city, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. An amateur video posted online by opposition activists showed a column of white smoke rising between buildings in Qamishli. The explosion came hours after activists said fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces killed at least five people in the embattled northern city of Aleppo. The dead included a man who has been shot by a sniper near the city's medieval citadel. Several homes were also destroyed in the violence, it said. The country's commercial capital and largest city, Aleppo is home to some 3 million people and was once a bastion of support for President Bashar Al-Assad. But the city has been hit by fierce fighting since rebels launched an offensive there in July. — AP
