A pair of bombing attacks targeted a New Year’s celebration in Syrian Kurdistan today, killing 35 people and wounding over 150, overwhelming hospitals in the northeastern Hasakeh Province.
ISIS is believed to have carried out the attacks, one of which involved a suicide bomber, and the other of which was simply a timed explosive. Kurdish officials say they are canceling the rest of the New Year’s celebrations.
Syria’s Kurdish territory, dominated by the YPG faction, includes much of Hasakeh Province, along with some cities in Aleppo Province. The two sides of their territory are split by ISIS’s heartland in the Raqqa Province.
ISIS has been seeking to expand its territory into Kurdistan, with mixed success, and launches attacks against Kurdish territory, either against security or civilian targets, regularly, trying to underscore the YPG’s inability to provide security from them.