BEIRUT (REUTERS) - A car bomb killed at least 20 people on Monday in the northern Syrian town of Darkoush, close to the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It said dozens were wounded by the explosion at a market in Darkoush, a small rebel-controlled town 2km from the frontier, and some of them were taken into Turkey for treatment.

The British-based Observatory, which monitors violence in Syria through a network of activists and medical and military sources, said 12 of the dead were identified by name and another eight badly charred bodies had been found.

More than 115,000 people have been killed in Syria's 2-1/2 year conflict, which grew out of protests that erupted in March 2011 against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.