2017 Aleppo suicide car bombing

On 15 April 2017, at approximately 15:30 local time, a car bomb exploded near a convoy of buses in the al-Rashideen neighbourhood in western Aleppo, Syria. The buses were transporting civilian evacuees from the besieged, government-controlled, Shia-majority towns of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya, and were guarded by rebel fighters at the time of the attack. The evacuation was part of a broader agreement brokered by the Syrian government, Iran, and Qatar, and implemented by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, under which residents of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya would be transported to Aleppo while residents of the Sunni-majority, opposition-supporting towns of Madaya and Al-Zabadani would be transported to Idlib province.

According to some journalists, the bomb was concealed in a car that had parked near the front of the convoy and began distributing crisps to attract children, while the buses were stopped at a checkpoint to move injured refugees. A subsequent investigation by the open-source research group Bellingcat disputed the characterization of the vehicle as an aid vehicle, identifying it instead as a third-generation Hyundai Porter Super Cab bearing a "W77" label and a yellow-green-red color scheme, with its affiliation left indeterminate.

The confirmed death toll rose to at least 126 by the day after the attack, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), including at least 80 children. The SOHR reported that 109 of the dead were refugees, including 68 children, with the remainder made up of rebel fighters and aid workers; a spokesman for the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group said that about 30 of its members were among the dead. The White Helmets civil defense group reported 55 people injured. The bombing caused the suspension of the evacuation program for several days; evacuations resumed on 19 April under tightened security at the Rashideen checkpoint. Three days after the bombing, a United Nations spokesperson said the attack was "likely a war crime" and that a person of interest seen in footage prior to the bombing was under investigation.

Responsibility for the attack has not been established. Syrian state television said the rebels who had besieged al-Fu'ah and Kafriya were responsible, while Ahrar al-Sham denied involvement, and some opposition figures suggested the Syrian government could have been behind the bombing to divert attention from the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack earlier that month. SOHR director Rami Abdulrahman said in a televised interview that he did not believe the Syrian government carried out the bombing.

The attack drew international condemnation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for guarantees of the security of evacuees. Pope Francis condemned the bombing as a "vile attack on fleeing refugees" in his Easter Sunday address. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the attack underscored the need to strengthen the ceasefire agreement. Writing in The Independent, journalist Robert Fisk criticized the U.S. government's comparative silence on the bombing relative to its response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.