Car bombing in rebel-held city kills 23

BEIRUT — A large car bombing in Syria's largest rebel-held city, Idlib, killed at least 23 people on Sunday evening, activists reported.

The explosion came hours after the Syrian military announced it had recaptured a strategically important town in eastern Idlib. The state-affiliated Al-Ikhbariya TV says government forces took Sinjar on Sunday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the advance "opens the road" for the government troops to march on the rebel-held Abu Zuhour air base about a dozen miles to the north.

Also on Sunday, Syrian TV said government forces reached troops who had been trapped for more than a week by rebels surrounding a military base outside Damascus.

The car bombing in Idlib took place outside an office of an insurgent group, Ajnad al-Koukaz, according to the Observatory and a local media activist who declined to be named out of fear of reprisals. The faction is made up of foreign fighters, most of whom are from the Caucasus region and Russia, the media activist said. It is in alliance with an al-Qaida-linked faction that dominates Idlib province, according to the Observatory's chief, Rami Abdurrahman.

Several rebel factions are vying for dominance in the province as government forces are pushing an offensive into the southeast corner of the region.