A police officer was killed Sunday in a car bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group (IS) in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria, police said. Kurdish police spokesman Ali al-Hassan said the car bomb was detonated by "remote control" near a school, "killing a member of our (police) forces". An AFP correspondent at the scene said the car exploded as a Kurdish police patrol drove by, not far from a Syrian army position.

Firefighters rushed to the scene to put out a blaze that spread from the vehicle to nearby trees, the correspondent said, adding that debris and traces of blood littered the ground. Syrian state news agency SANA said the car bombing caused casualties but did not give further details. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported that a member of the Kurdish Asayesh security forces was killed in the bombing.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019