IS suicide bombing kills 16 in Kurdish-held Syria

The Islamic State (IS) group said on Wednesday that it carried out a suicide bombing that killed 16 people in a mainly Kurdish city in northeastern Syria.

Tuesday evening's blast in Hasakeh struck outside a bakery in a Kurdish neighbourhood where a large crowd had gathered as they prepared to break the last daytime fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Parts of Hasakeh remain under Syrian government control but most of the city, including the area where the attack took place, and nearly all of the surrounding province are held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

The bomber infiltrated the Salihiah district then blew up his explosives belt in the middle of the crowd, IS said in a statement on social media.

A Kurdish police source said the bomber, who was on a motorbike, also wounded 40 people.

Fifteen of them were in critical condition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Right said.

The YPG, which has declared an autonomous region across the mainly Kurdish areas of northern Syria they hold, are regarded by the US as the most effective fighting force against IS on the ground in Syria.

A local Kurdish leader told the Kurdish ARA News that IS was attempting to take advantage of recent clashes between Kurdish security forces and government troops in the area.

"ISIS wants to use the clashes between the Asayish and the regime, and is seeing a weak point to carry out bombings," said Amjad Othman, a leader from the Kurdish Reform Party.

"We have to be careful as Kurds to have a balance in the fight against ISIS, and the tensions with the regime."

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are engaged in a campaign to seize the strategic town of Manbij near the Syrian border from IS.