Turkey accused a group loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yesterday of carrying out car bombings that killed 46 people in a Turkish border town and said the risk of unrest spreading to Syria’s neighbours was increasing.

It is time for the international community to act

The twin car bombs, which ripped into crowded shopping streets in Reyhanli on Saturday, increased fears that Syria’s civil war is dragging in neighbouring states despite renewed diplomatic moves to end two years of conflict that have killed more than 70,000.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was time for the international community to take action against Assad.

“It is time for the international community to act together against this regime. We, like Jordan, are hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Security risks to neighbouring countries are rising,” he told a news conference during a visit to Berlin.

Authorities have arrested nine people, all Turkish citizens and including the alleged mastermind, deputy prime minister Besir Atalay told reporters.

Davutoglu said those involved were from an “old Marxist terrorist organisation” with direct links to the Assad regime.

He said earlier that the Reyhanli bombers were believed to be from the same group that carried out an attack on the Syrian coastal town of Banias a week ago in which at least 62 people were killed.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zubi denied any Syrian involvement and rejected what he called “unfounded accusations”.

The conflict has fuelled a confrontation between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in the Middle East, with Shi’ite Iran supporting Assad, and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia backing the rebels.

Banias is a Sunni pocket in the midst of a large Alawite enclave on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Activists in the area accuse militias loyal to Assad, an Alawite, of ethnic attacks. Reyhanli, home to thousands of Syrian refugees, is also predominantly Sunni and ethnic Arab and has become a logistics base for the rebels fighting Assad just over the border.