At Least 16 Dead in Islamic State Suicide Bombing in Syria Bombers targeted two crowded restaurants in central Qamishli, in the northeast Hasakah province By Dana Ballout and Mohammad Nour Alakraa
http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-least-16-dead-in-islamic-state-suicide-bombing-in-syria-1451571259
BEIRUT—Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday for a deadly double suicide bombing in a Kurdish Syrian city, part of the extremist group’s campaign against Kurdish-controlled areas of the country.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights both reported casualties of at least 16 and no more than 20, and about 30 wounded.
The Sunni Muslim militant group claimed the attacks in a statement distributed online, boasting that it had killed 30 people and wounded hundreds more.
Islamic State bombers targeted two crowded restaurants on Wednesday evening in central Qamishli, in the northeastern province of Hasakah, according to Syria’s state news agency and the Observatory, a U.K.-based opposition monitoring group.
They entered and detonated their explosives as people ate, the Observatory said. The majority of the victims were Christian, it added.
Qamishli, the largest city under Kurdish control in Hasakah, has a historically large Christian population that has previously come under attack by Islamic State. Many have fled to neighboring countries as the group has closed in.
“The people of Qamishli are living in a state of anxiety because of these fierce terrorist attacks, unprecedented for the city, particularly on the eve of New Year holiday,” said The Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights, a local monitoring group, in a Facebook post on Thursday.
Earlier this month, Islamic State attacked the neighboring town of Tal Tamr in a triple suicide bombing that killed at least 60 people. Three explosive-packed vehicles driven by suicide bombers targeted bases of the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a U.S. ground partner in the fight against Islamic State.
Many Christians in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast are allied with the YPG in the fight against Islamic State, in return for Kurdish protection of Christian communities in the area.
Islamic State also reported further attacks this week on Kurdish-controlled areas of neighboring Raqqa province.
The group on Wednesday launched an attack on the town of Ayn Issa, according to Islamic State’s Al Bayan media channel and a local activist group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. The attack was part of Islamic State’s continuing effort the undermine the YPG, which controls the town.
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