{Death toll from two explosions feared to rise as ISIL claims attack targeting Kurdish area Qamishli.}<\/p>\n
Two explosions have struck a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens.<\/p>\n
Syrian state TV said a truck loaded with explosives blew up on the western edge of the town of Qamishli, near the Turkish border, on Wednesday. Minutes later, a motorcycle also packed with explosives blew up in the same area.<\/p>\n
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack.<\/p>\n
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion targeted a centre of the local Kurdish police and a nearby government building.<\/p>\n
Amid the wreckage, people searched for survivors even as fire still burned around them.<\/p>\n
“Oh my son, what did they do to you?,” a grieving mother said at the scene. “They burned you, and they burned the country.”<\/p>\n
Those wounded were rushed to hospitals where doctors raced to save their lives.<\/p>\n
“I saw a terrible thing,” a wounded young man said. “I was next to the security headquarters when the explosion happened.”<\/p>\n
A man walks at a damaged site after two bomb blasts claimed by ISIL hit Qamishli <\/p>\n
ISIL has carried out several bombings in Kurdish areas in Syria in the past.<\/p>\n
The predominantly Kurdish US-backed Syria Democratic Forces have been the main force fighting ISIL in northern Syria and have captured wide areas from the hardline fighters.<\/p>\n
“This was a large attack,” said Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Gaziantep in Turkey, which is close to the Syrian border. “The death toll could significantly rise throughout the day.”<\/p>\n
The latest attack comes amid intense fighting in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, where more than 50 people have been killed in recent days.<\/p>\n
As the war drags on towards its sixth year, there is a renewed international push to restart the stalled Syria political talks next month.<\/p>\n
People look for survivors under debris at a damaged site in Qamishli on Wednesday <\/p>\n
Speaking in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, following a closed-door meeting with US and Russian officials, Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy to Syria, said Washington and Moscow had been discussing ways to work towards the reintroduction of a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
De Mistura said that a third round of intra-Syrian peace talks is set for August.<\/p>\n
“In the context of the bilateral meeting today, it was also agreed that we, the UN – the facilitator, the mediator – should continue preparing proposals for addressing difficult issues that are related to the [talks],” he said.<\/p>\n
The Syrian Observatory estimates that more than 280,000 people have been killed throughout the five years of bloodshed. Efforts to negotiate a lasting ceasefire have collapsed time and again.<\/p>\n
More than 4.8 million Syrians have become refugees displaced from their homeland, while more than 6.5 million people are internally displaced within the country’s borders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Death toll from two explosions feared to rise as ISIL claims attack targeting Kurdish area Qamishli.} Two explosions have struck a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens. Syrian state TV said a truck loaded with explosives blew up on the western edge of the town of Qamishli, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27291"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27291"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}