A SUICIDE bomber riding an empty livestock truck laden with explosives blew himself up Wednesday in a crowded district in the predominantly Kurdish town of Qamishli in northern Syria, causing massive destruction and killing 44 people in a new attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

    Residents and activists describe a huge explosion in the western district of the town Kurds call the capital of their self-declared autonomous enclave in northern Syria.

    Hours after the early-morning explosion, rescue workers continued to search for survivors under the rubble of buildings, some of them totally leveled by the powerful blast. Most of the victims were civilians, who were lingering in the district that also houses a station for the Kurdish security forces. It was not immediately clear if any Kurdish fighters were among those killed.

    “Terror is all I saw among the residents when I first arrived. I was shocked at the extent of destruction in the homes and shops,” said Decile Husen, a 23-year-old media activist who works with the Kurdish ANHA Hawar news agency, who got to the scene shortly after the 9:30 a.m. explosion. “One home was reduced to rubble. Nothing was left of it,” she said.

    Qamishli, near the Turkish border, is mainly controlled by Kurds but Syrian government forces are present and control the town’s airport.

    The Kurds, Syria’s largest ethnic minority, have carved out a semi-autonomous enclave in Syria’s north since the start of the civil war in 2011, where they run their own affairs.(SD-Agencies)