A Kia truck with explosives hidden in its cargo of watermelons exploded on Tuesday in Diwaniyah, a largely Shiite city in southern Iraq, leaving at least 40 people dead, including a 6-year-old boy, local officials said. It was the deadliest in a string of attacks on Tuesday in central and southern Iraq.

The truck bomb in Diwaniyah was detonated near the city’s main fish and vegetable market, where local officials had reopened the streets to vehicles less than five months ago after keeping them closed for years over security concerns. The area was crowded with morning shoppers at the time of the explosion.

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A statement from the Turkish military confirmed that the jets had been scrambled after three near-violations of its territory by Syrian helicopters on Saturday.

Tensions between the former allies have been drastically raised since Syria shot down a Turkish reconnaissance plane last month.

Turkey admitted the plane may have briefly entered Syrian airspace but insisted it was in international airspace by the time it was shot down over the Mediterranean, with the two pilots still missing.

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Fighters for the insurgent Free Syrian Army launched what they described as an exploratory attack on a military base housing Syria’s elite Republican Guard in Damascus late Monday, and the ferocious reaction on Tuesday convinced them their foray had been something of a success.

The Syrian armed forces responded with heavy shelling of the suburb of Qudssaya, an area with strong opposition presence about two and a half miles northwest of the Presidential Palace, and on Barzeh in northern Damascus, about three miles northeast. Activists reported that as many as 33 residents were killed.

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At least twenty persons are dead in the second day of heavy bombing by governmental troops on Deir ez-Zor, east Syria.

The report comes from opposition activists, according to whom the governmental troops have fallen back from the residential areas and are bombing from the suburbs.

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Turkey’s military has confirmed further air strikes against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq.

It said nine attacks were carried out by Turkish aircraft on hideouts of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), mostly in the Qandil region.

Last Wednesday the military said it had carried out similar strikes, a day after eight Turkish soldiers and 26 PKK rebels were killed in clashes.

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