Blast in northwestern Syria kills at least 16

At least 16 people were killed in an explosion in the northwestern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughur. A building collapsed and other buildings were damaged.

Jisr al-Shughur: An explosion in the northwestern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughur, controlled by insurgents, destroyed a building and damaged others, killing at least 16 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and first responders. The Observatory said the dead included four children.

The explosion was so big that civil defense workers spent more than 10 hours pulling bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a totally collapsed building, they said.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. But the Observatory and a civil defense worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said they suspected a car full of explosives was behind the explosion.

Jisr al-Shughur is controlled by some of the more radical groups still in control in parts of northwestern Syria, primarily the Turkistan Islamist Party, foreign fighters from the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority.