Beirut - A triple truck bomb attack claimed by Islamic State in northeastern Syria killed at least 60 people and wounded 80 others, a spokesman for the Kurdish militia that controls the area said on Friday.
The town in the northeastern province of Hasaka is controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has been battling Islamic State with the support of US-led air strikes.
Kurdish fighters have advanced against the militants in the last few weeks in Hasaka, notably taking over the town of al Houl backed up by a US-backed rebel alliance that includes the YPG. The three blasts, carried out by at least two suicide bombers, struck outside a hospital, at a marketplace and in a residential area in the town of Tel Tamer late on Thursday, the YPG's Redur Xelil said via an internet messaging service. "There is massive destruction in the town and the number killed is between 50 and 60, all of them civilians," he said. Islamic State later said in an online statement that three of its fighters driving three separate vehicles had detonated the suicide bombs targeting "bases" belonging to Kurdish fighters.
Earlier the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a death toll of at least 22 people in the attack, saying that number was likely to increase.
The Observatory said one of the bombs exploded near a health centre and another near a vegetable market. It said there was "confirmed information" about casualties among the Kurdish internal security force, known as the Asayish.
The YPG has been the most effective partner on the ground in Syria for the US-led coalition that is fighting Islamic State. In October, it became part of the new US-backed alliance, called the Democratic Forces of Syria.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter has said the fight against the extremist group the Islamic State (IS) is not a fight with Muslims or Islam. "We have said... and the president (Barrack Obama) has said this, that in the fight against ISIL, this is not a fight with Muslims or Islam," Carter said in a joint press conference with visiting Indian Minister of Defence Manohar Parrikar on Thursday
"This (IS) is an extremist, violent movement which threatens America and needs to be defeated," Carter said. "We're working on accelerating the defeat of ISIL. That's the important thing." During his congressional hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Carter said the United States was "at war."
"The reality is we're at war. That's how our troops feel about it because they're taking the fight with ISIL every day," Carter said on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in Moscow on the Syrian crisis and rival visions of the fight against the Islamic State group. "They will discuss ongoing efforts to achieve a political transition in Syria," spokesman Mark Toner said on Friday on the sidelines of the UN climate summit in Paris.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered his forces in Syria to take tough action against any threats, speaking two weeks after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in the war-torn country.
"I order you to act as tough as possible," he told a defence meeting. "Any targets threatening the Russian grouping or our land infrastructure should be immediately destroyed."
"I would like to warn those who would once again try to organise some sort of provocations against our servicemen," he said in a thinly veiled threat to Ankara.
Last month, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border, claiming it violated Turkish airspace.
After the downing of the jet, which led to the deaths of a pilot and another serviceman who tried to rescue him, Russia introduced economic sanctions against Turkey and beefed up its firepower at its airbase in Syria. Putin's call for a tougher military response is also likely to cause concern among monitors who have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting an indiscriminate bombing campaign and killing civilians in Syria.
Putin also claimed Russia was backing the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with arms in joint operations with regime forces.
"Right now several of its units numbering more than 5,000 people as well as regular forces are conducting an offensive against terrorists in the provinces of Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Raqa," Putin claimed.
"In addition to that, we are supporting them (the FSA) from the air as well as the Syrian army, assisting them with weapons, munition and materiel."
It was not immediately clear what rebel groups Putin was referring to. Syria's rebel forces have regularly rejected the possibility of cooperating with the regime or Russia and there has been no evidence of such cooperation.
When Russia said in October it was ready to provide air support for Western-backed moderate rebels battling both jihadists and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, those groups ridiculed Moscow, urging it to stop bombing them first.
Russia has been carrying out air strikes in the war-ravaged nation at Assad's request since the end of September, while a US-led coalition is conducting its own campaign targeting the Islamic State (IS) group.
Earlier this week Russia said it hit IS targets with missiles fired from a submarine in the Mediterranean for the first time since launching the campaign.
Putin rejected claims that Russia is using the Syrian campaign, which also saw the military fire off cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea, to showcase its top weapons to the West.
"Our actions there are not guided by some unclear abstract geopolitical interests, nor are they guided by a desire to practice and test new weapons systems which is of course important in itself," Putin said.
"The most important thing is to prevent the threat to Russia itself."
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, for his part, said IS jihadists now control 70 percent of Syrian territory, putting their number at 60,000.