Syrian rights activists say government troops have bombed a town in northern Syria, killing at least 12 people.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll from the attack Monday in Salqin, near the Turkish border, included five children.

Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said the attack killed 30 people.

There was no independent confirmation of the casualties from the bombing because Syria restricts reporting by international journalists.

Syria's civil war appeared to widen to the country's mainly Kurdish northeast on Sunday, with a suicide car bomber killing several people in a rare attack on a Syrian Kurdish town near the Turkish border.

Syrian state media said at least four people were killed in the blast in Qamishli, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bomber killed eight Syrian security personnel near a government security compound.

It was the first such attack in the predominantly-Kurdish area since the outbreak of the 18-month Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's autocratic rule. Syrian Kurds largely have stayed out of the conflict.

In other developments, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Iran, Russia and China to stop supporting the Assad government. Speaking Sunday, he said “history will not forgive those who stand with brutal regimes.”

Iran is Syria's strongest regional ally. Western and Sunni-led Arab states have accused Tehran of providing military aid to Mr. Assad.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat that Baghdad plans to conduct random inspections of Iranian planes flying to Syria through Iraqi airspace. In the interview published Sunday, Zebari said Iraq agreed to start the stop and search program at the request of the United States.