Bombings in Kurdish area kill 8, as US official embarks on secret visit to Syria

At least eight people were killed when bombings rocked predominantly-Kurdish areas in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah, a monitor group reported Sunday.

Five Kurdish security personnel with the Assayish Forces were killed Saturday, when two car bombs driven by the Islamic State (IS) militants went off near Assyaish checkpoints in the town of Aliah in the town of Tamr in the countryside of al-Hasakah, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In the city of Qamishli inside al-Hasakah, three civilians were killed when two IS suicide bombers detonated themselves inside a restaurant and a bakery in a Christian-dominated before midnight, added the UK-based watchdog group.

Meanwhile, state news agency SANA placed the death toll of the dinner and bakery bombings at five, adding the 20 others were injured.

The blasts were not the first to target areas in Qamishli.

Last week, five Kurdish fighters were killed when a car bomb hit a checkpoint of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or the YPG, at the al-Hilaliyeh roundabout in Qamishli.

The Kurds, roughly 15 percent of Syria's 23 million inhabitants, mostly live in the north of the embattled country and have been trying to keep their areas away from military operations and retain the kind of "autonomy."

In 2012, Syrian troops withdrew from most of the Kurdish areas, leaving Kurdish militia take over local security. The government, however, is still in control of vital areas in the city of Qamishli and the al-Hasakah province.

Following the surge of the IS in July 2014 and their capture of Kurdish areas in northern Syria, the U.S.-led coalition begun to help the Kurds in their battles against the extremists.

A few months ago, the Kurds voted in favor of establishing a federal region which would include the areas in northern Syria, on a triangular basis of the predominantly Kurdish strongholds of Kobani, Afreen and the al-Jazeera region.

The Kurds have largely been supported by the United States, whose airstrikes have helped them defeat IS in several locations in northeast Syria.

General Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Centcom, secretly visited northern Syria on Friday for 11 hours, during which he met with commanders of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other U.S.-backed rebel groups.

The visit was said to aim to coordinate the U.S.-led coalition and rebels plans in taking back Syria's northern province of Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the IS in northern Syria.

In anticipation to possible escalation of conflict in Raqqa, group asked the civilians in key areas in Raqqa to move toward IS-controlled towns in the countryside of that province, which fell to the IS in 2013.

Votel's trip wasn't the first visit of a U.S. official to areas not under the government control in Syria.

Last February, the U.S. envoy to the coalition against Islamic State, Brett McGurk, visited Kurdish-controlled area in northern Syria, a visit that was believed toreview the anti-IS fight.

Source: XINHUA