A massive bomb blast claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 44 people and wounded dozens on Wednesday in the Kurdish-majority Syrian city of Qamishli. It was the largest and deadliest attack to hit the city since the beginning of Syria's conflict in March 2011.
Syrian state media gave a toll of 44 dead and 140 injured in the bombing, which hit a western district of the city where several local Kurdish ministries are located. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor gave a toll of 48 dead, adding that children and women were among those killed.
Kurdish officials said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck, adding that the blast detonated a nearby fuel container.
An AFP journalist saw devastating scenes in the bomb's aftermath, with distraught civilians, some covered in blood, staggering through rubble past twisted metal and the burned-out remains of cars. One man running along the streets was completely covered in blood, his shirt drenched red.
He was gripping the arm of a small boy whose face was grey and red with blood and dust. They ran past a hysterical woman who was crying and screaming, her clothes torn. A girl and boy stood next to her, apparently in shock.
Children could be heard screaming as smoke rose from small fires that continued to burn amongst the rubble. Civilians and local security forces with guns slung across their backs worked to carry the dead and wounded from the remains of damaged and destroyed buildings.
The Islamic State group claimed the attack in a statement circulated on social media, calling it "a response to the crimes committed by the crusader coalition aircraft" in the town of Manbij, a bastion of the jihadist group in Syria's Aleppo province. Kurdish fighters have been a key force battling the jihadists in north and north-eastern Syria and are the main component in the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance currently seeking to oust IS from Manbij.
They are backed by air strikes launched by the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq. Civilians have been caught up in the fighting and on Wednesday 800 residents fled the town for areas under SDF control, the Observatory said. Also Wednesday, a spokesman for the US-led coalition said it had opened a formal investigation to determine whether its strikes near Manbij last week had killed civilians. The Observatory reported that 56 civilians were killed in strikes as they fled a village near Manbij on July 19, and Colonel Chris Garver said there was sufficient credible evidence of civilian victims to warrant a probe.
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