ISIS have claimed responsibility for a today's massive suicide bombings in Syria that killed 48 people.
Among the victims were women and children at a Kurdish security facility in al-Qamishli in the country's north less than a mile from the Turkish border.
Kurdish officials said the attack was carried out by a terrorist driving an explosives-laden truck and the explosion was so powerful it shattered windows in a Turkish town a mile away.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor gave a toll of 48 dead, adding that children and women were among those killed.
It was the largest and deadliest attack to hit the city since the beginning of Syria's conflict in March 2011.
The blast was initially described as a double bombing, but local officials and the Observatory said the bomb had detonated a nearby fuel container, leading to reports of a second explosion.
The explosion was so powerful it shattered the windows of shops a mile away in the Turkish town of Nusaybin across the border where two people were hurt.
A journalist witnessed the devastating scenes in the bomb's aftermath, as distraught civilians, some covered in blood, staggered through rubble past twisted metal and the burned-out remains of cars.
One man running along the streets was completely covered in blood, his shirt drenched red.
He was gripping the arm of a small boy whose face was grey and red with blood and dust.
They ran past a hysterical woman who was crying and screaming, her clothes torn.
A girl and boy stood next to her, apparently in shock.
Children could be heard screaming as smoke rose from small fires that continued to burn amongst the rubble.
Civilians and local security forces with guns slung across their backs worked to carry the dead and wounded from the remains of damaged and destroyed buildings.
The Islamic State group claimed the attack in a statement circulated on social media, calling it 'a response to the crimes committed by the crusader coalition aircraft' in the town of Manbij, a bastion of the jihadist group in Syria's Aleppo province.
Kurdish fighters have been a key force battling the jihadists in north and northeastern Syria and are the main component in the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance currently seeking to oust IS from Manbij.
They are backed by air strikes launched by the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.
Al-Qamishli is under the shared control of the Syrian regime and Kurdish authorities, who have declared zones of 'autonomous administration' across parts of north and northeast Syria.
It has regularly been targeted in bomb attacks, many of which have been claimed by IS.
