Car bombing in Syrian Kurdish city kills security force member, injures 2 more: Report

A suicide bombing killed a member of local security forces and injured and two others on Sunday in the Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli (Qamishlo), located on the Turkish border.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A suicide bombing killed a member of local security forces and injured and two others on Sunday in the Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli (Qamishlo), located on the Turkish border.

The incident occurred in the morning in front of a secondary school in Qamishlo’s al-Arbouya neighborhood, a part of the city still held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Multiple attackers reportedly blew themselves up in a car fitted with explosives near a team of Kurdish internal security forces, local media ANHA reported. One soldier was killed and another injured, along with a traffic police officer. The wounded were taken to a nearby hospital where they are receiving medical care.

The so-called Islamic State later took responsibility for the attack through its propaganda outlet, Amaq.

Early last month, another car bombing occurred in the Syrian regime-held part of Qamishlo, with initial casualty reports indicating that twelve people had been injured.

Related Article: Car bombing in front of church in Syrian Kurdish city injures 12

The bombing targeted the Virgin Lady Church, close to central Qamishlo and part of a strip of land controlled by Damascus that halves the city, along with territory on its southwest outskirts.

In mid-2016, a truck bomb blast in the city claimed by the Islamic State took the lives of nearly 50 people and wounded about 150 others. 

In recent history, Qamishlo is best known as the site of a 2004 event that first ignited an uprising in northeastern Syria and rapidly spread across other Kurdish-majority areas. At the time, it was arguably one of the most formative events of Syrian Kurdish political awareness in decades.

The incident that sparked the uprising began during a seemingly uneventful football match between two rivals: Fetuwa, mainly supported by Arabs, and al-Jihad, supported by Kurds.

In the Qamishlo stadium, Fetuwa fans attacked many Kurdish fans as did Syrian security forces, leaving six Kurds dead. Three children also died in the ensuing stampede trying to escape the stadium. 

Editing by John J. Catherine