Itongadol.- A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with 1.5 tons of explosives killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens in the Syrian city of Hama on Sunday, state media and a monitoring group reported.
The man blew himself up inside the vehicle on a busy road on the outskirts of the city in central Syria, the SANA news agency said. It blamed "terrorists", the term it uses to describe rebel forces trying to topple President Bashar Assad.
The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack targeted an army checkpoint but most of the dead were civilians.
Syria\’s 2-1/2-year-old conflict began as peaceful protests but has turned into civil war. More than 100,000 people have died, according to United Nations figures, in fighting that is now spread across most of the country.
Rebels have been joined by hardline Islamists, some of them linked to al-Qaida, who have become increasingly powerful among opposition forces.
According to the Observatory, the suicide bomber was from the Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate that has frequently used suicide bombers to attack military and political targets.