Beirut: At least 32 people were killed on Tuesday in an Islamic State group attack near a refugee camp on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq, a monitor said.

‘At least five suicide attackers blew themselves up outside and inside a camp for Iraqi refugees and displaced Syrians in Hasakeh province,’ Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Heavy clashes then erupted between the IS fighters and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, some of whose combatants were among the dead, Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The camp lies in the Rajm al-Salibeh area just inside Syrian territory, and at least 21 of the dead were displaced Syrians or Iraqi refugees, the Observatory said.

‘At least 30 people were wounded, and the death toll may rise because some people are in critical condition and others are still unaccounted for,’ the Britain-based monitor said.

The US-backed SDF has captured swathes of northern Syria from IS, and in recent days overran most of the strategic Euphrates Valley town of Tabqa.

The battle for Tabqa is an important part of a broader offensive for IS’s main Syrian stronghold, Raqa, downstream.