Mass evacuation in Syria postponed after blast kills 80 kids,

BEIRUT — The evacuation of more than 3,000 Syrians that was scheduled to take place Sunday from four areas as part of a population transfer has been postponed, opposition activists said, a day after a blast that killed more than 120 people, many of them government supporters.

The scope of the carnage stood out even amid the widespread bloodshed and atrocities of the more than 6-year-old Syrian war, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, forced millions to flee their homes and reduced broad swaths of Aleppo and other cities and communities to rubble-strewn ghost towns.

The attack, apparently by a suicide bomber, occurred in a rebel-held area outside Aleppo. The blast site raised suspicions that an opposition faction was behind the bombing.

Opposition activist Hussam Mahmoud said the evacuation has been delayed for “logistical reasons.”

The United Nations is not overseeing the transfer deal, which involves residents of the pro-government villages of Foua and Kfarya and the oppositionheld towns of Madaya and Zabadani. All four have been under siege for years.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Saturday’s blast — which hit an area where thousands of pro-government evacuees had been waiting for hours — killed 126. He said the dead included 109 people from Foua and Kfarya, among them 80 children and 13 women.

No one has claimed the attack, but both the Islamic State group and the alQaida-affiliated Fatah alSham Front have targeted civilians in government areas in the past.

A wounded girl told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV that children were approached by a man in the car who told them to come and eat potato chips. She said once many had gathered, there was an explosion.

Meanwhile in eastern Syria, an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on the village of Sukkarieh near the border with Iraq killed eight civilians who had earlier fled violence in the northern province of Aleppo, according to Deir Ezzor 24, an activist collective, and Sound and Picture Organization, which documents IS violations.