Blast in Syria's Idlib hits arms depot, kills three

FUAA, Syria — A blast at a militants-run arms depot in Syria's north-western Idlib region killed two fighters and a civilian on Monday, a war monitor said.

The explosion blew the warehouse to smithereens and set fire to a nearby field, an AFP correspondent who reached the scene near the town of Fuaa reported.

The blast destroyed "a warehouse run by militants and where missiles and explosive materials were manufactured", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The British-based monitoring group said two militants were killed in the explosion, as was a woman who lived nearby.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion, but the war monitor said it was most likely caused by an air strike.

The observatory could not immediately specify which organisation ran the warehouse, but said it was not under the control of the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) group dominating Idlib.

The HTS outfit, which includes ex-leaders from the former Al Qaeda franchise in Syria, has weeded out rivals from much of the area but small factions remain.