IS claims attack on Kurdish wedding as casualties rise

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Islamic State (IS) on Tuesday claimed the Monday night attack on a wedding hall near the city of Hasaka in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava).

The online-circled IS news agency Aamaq named the attacker as Abu al-Bara Ansari, adding that he opened fire on the “PKK apostates” before blowing himself up.

Hasaka is under a near full control of the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) after it drove off Syrian regime forces in August clashes.

Meanwhile, the number of casualties from the IS attack rose to 34 on Tuesday, according to Kurdish officials.

The Co-chair of the Council for Health in the self-declared Kurdish Canton of Jazira Abir Hasaf told Kurdistan24 in a live TV interview that 95 others were wounded in the suicide bombing attack.

Almost all of the victims of the IS attack were civilians, Hasaf said.

The wounded were rushed to hospitals in Hasaka while four others with heavier injuries were sent to the city of Duhok in the Kurdistan Region, she added.

One of the wounded, a child, under treatment at a Duhok hospital died on Tuesday, said a Kurdistan24 reporter in Duhok.

KURDISTAN REGION CONDEMNS HASAKA ATTACK

Meanwhile, the Presidency of the Kurdistan Region condemned the attack in Hasaka.

In a statement online, the Presidency announced all the medical facilities in the Region were ready to receive the wounded from Rojava or send aid there.

The Hasaka attack is the second IS attack on a Kurdish wedding in less than two months.

On Aug. 21, an IS suicide bomber killed at least 57 and injured 65 others in another Kurdish wedding in the city of Gaziantep in Turkey.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany