Suicide bomber kills at least one police officer in Syria’s Aleppo

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Officials say a ‘terrorist’ detonated suicide belt as officers protecting New Year’s Eve festivities tried to detain him.

A suicide bomber targeted a group of Syrian police officers in the city of Aleppo killing one member of the security forces and wounding several others, the official news agency SANA reported.

The incident, hours before the new year on Wednesday, follows the bombing of an Alawite mosque in Homs that killed at least eight people on Friday.

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The Aleppo governorate administration said the assailant blew himself up after officers approached to detain him in the city’s Bab al-Faraj neighbourhood.

“The relevant authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the incident and have imposed a security perimeter around the site,” it said.

Azzam al-Gharib, the governor of the province, said security forces observed the “terrorist agent” and tried to arrest him while securing New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city.

“One of the security officers managed to physically restrain him. At that point the terrorist detonated his explosive belt,” al-Gharib said in a statement.

The wounded officers are receiving treatment at a hospital, he added, without providing details about their condition.

No group has claimed responsibility for the suicide blast in Aleppo so far.