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At least 34 people have been killed from two bomb blasts on Wednesday in the Kurdish majority town of Qamishli in northeastern Syria, according to Kurdish officials, with Al Jazeera reporting that the death toll is at least 50.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based organization which monitors the war in Syria, said at least one of the explosions hit near a security headquarters of the Kurdish administration that controls most of Hasaka province, where Qamishli is located.
Syrian state TV said one blast was from a car bomb and the other from a bomb on a motorbike, saying 31 people had died.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, according to its Aamaq news agency. The extremist group is fighting against the U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG forces in the Hasaka and Aleppo provinces of Syria and has carried out a number of similar attacks in Kurdish areas before.
Islamic State said Wednesday's attack was in retaliation to air strikes that occured in the IS-held city of Manbij in north-west Syria.
According to the BBC, there are people trapped under rubble, prompting many to believe the death toll may rise. So far more than 100 people have been wounded.
The attacks comes as fighting intensifies between the YPG and the extremist organization, with the former capturing large areas of territory from the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria. The Kurdish forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes, are currently seeking to push the extremists out of a key town on Turkish border.
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The U.S. started bombing Syria in September 2014 and soon after began providing air support for the Kurdish YPG. According to Airwars, an independent monitoring organization, U.S. and Russian airstrikes have likely killed hundreds of civilians. Airwars also estimated that civilians deaths in Syria are under-reported by as much as 95 percent by the U.S.
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