Monday’s bombings were reminiscent of a string of attacks in 1986 in northwestern Syria – including in Tartus – that killed 144 people and which Syrian officials blamed on the regime of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq.
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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says there is “a great risk” to about 50,000 civilians the U.N. estimates are still in Fallujah, especially for those trying to flee the Iraqi government offensive to retake the city from the Islamic State extremist group.
The Islamic State group claimed the attacks via its Amaq news agency, saying IS fighters had attacked “Alawite gatherings” in Tartus and Jableh.
State media said at least 78 people were killed and scores injured in the attacks targeting the cities of Tartus and Jableh. The targets included bus stations and a hospital, and marked an escalation in the conflict as world powers struggle to restart peace talks in Geneva.
Two more suicide attackers blew themselves up at an electricity company office and in the entrance to a hospital emergency department.
Russian Federation and the regime bombed the outskirts of Aleppo over the weekend, while the regime also attacked and retook part of the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus. It also showed the charred remains of cars and minivans in what appears to be a bus station in Jableh. At least one of the bombings was a suicide attack.
Separately, Syria’s SANA state news agency and the state TV said four explosions rocked Jableh, south of Latakia city.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said they were “without a doubt the deadliest attacks” on the two cities since the start of the war.
There were five suicide attacks and two vehicle bombs.
The bombings were confirmed by state media, though it gave a lower death toll than the 148 reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the main overseas monitor. The militants are not known to maintain a presence in the surrounding countryside, an area in which mainstream rebels and al-Qaida affiliated insurgents form the predominant opposition to Assad’s forces.
Along with the hospital explosion, it said 73 people were killed in a suicide vehicle explosion in Jabla. On most mornings more than 100 cars would have been lining up at the targeted gas station, because of petrol shortages.
A Kremlin spokesman condemned the attacks, saying they “demonstrate yet again how fragile the situation is in Syria and the need to take energetic measures to relaunch peace talks”.
In all, seven explosions ripped through both locations simultaneously: four in Jableh, including three suicide bombings and one auto bomb, and three in Tartus, including two suicide bombings and one vehicle bomb.
Both explosions in Yemen occurred in Aden: one at Al-Badr military base and the second in the city’s Khormaksar district. Dozens more were wounded, including 12 in critical condition, according to security officials. Pro-government forces or militias summarily executed 248 civilians and looted and burned down Sunni neighborhoods there in May 2013, according to Human Rights Watch.
Jableh lies in Latakia province, while Tartus is the capital of the adjacent governorate of the same name.
The one-sentence report by the IS-linked Aamaq news agency, which routinely carries the group’s news and claims, offered no details.
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Twin bombings targeting the Yemeni army in second city Aden on Monday killed at least 41 people, a lot of them would-be recruits, a military official said.
