Bombings suspected to have been carried out by the Islamic State group killed at least eight people in north-eastern Syria hours after a top US commander visited, security forces said Sunday. Washington regards the Kurdish-led militia that controls most of the north-east as the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and the head of US Central Command General Joseph Votel made a secret visit Saturday to confer with US military advisers working with them.
A CENTCOM spokesman declined to give details of the visit, saying only that Votel had visited several location inside Syria on the highest-ranking visit to the country since the 2011 outbreak of the civil war.
Two IS suicide bombers struck the centre of Qamishli, a mainly Kurdish city that is the de facto capital of the swathes of northern Syria where Kurdish militia have set up a self-declared autonomous administration. The bombers hit a restaurant and a bakery in the Christian Wusta neighbourhood of the city that is controlled by a breakaway Christian militia that backs the Damascus regime.
A militia spokesman said three Christians were killed and 15 wounded in the bombings.
The IS-affiliated Amaq news agency reported the bombings but issued no claim.
Hours earlier, two car bombs hit a Kurdish checkpoint outside the town of Tal Tamr, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Turkish border.