The assailants detonated two bombs at the entrance of the government stronghold of Tartus along the worldwide coastal highway, which killed 30 persons, SANA news agency said. SANA said the attack killed one person, while the opposition-run Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed.
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There was also an explosion near the town of al-Saboura, along a road which leads onto the Beirut-Damascus highway, according to a police commander quoted on state television.
The group made the claim in a statement carried by its affiliated news agency, Amaq.
Regime media also reported that eight people were killed in a bombing in Hasakeh, in the northeast of the country.
Al-Zahraa has also been regularly targeted in bomb attacks, including a devastating double bomb blast in February that killed 57 people and was claimed by IS.
The Observatory put the death toll at 32, including members of the Syrian military, and said the number was likely to rise.
Syria has been reeling under a civil war that has reportedly killed over 280,000 people and displaced millions.
Another auto bomb hit a checkpoint in Homs, killing two, and five people were killed in the explosion in Hassakeh, initial reports said. On Sunday, Turkish troops and Syrian rebels drove ISIL back from the last stretch of Syria’s northern border under its control, severing key supply lines to its self-styled caliphate.
Turkey began an operation inside Syria on 24 August targetting not only IS but also Syrian Kurdish forces that have been a key United States partner in the fight against the jihadist group in Syria.
The wave of attacks came as Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin held discussions about the Syrian conflict on the sidelines of the G20 summit in China, but failed to finalise a deal on stemming the bloodshed.
Bombings targeted the government stronghold of Tartus, home to a Russian naval base, as well as a heavily guarded Damascus suburb and a military post in the central city of Homs.
Russian Federation has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad, but the United States has worked with what it says are moderate opposition forces fighting against him.
The jihadist group has been losing ground to both an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces and, more recently, to a Turkish offensive involving rebels loyal to Ankara. The IS news agency said the attack targeted a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces.
Despite this, Obama said Monday a meeting with Putin on Syria had included “productive conversations about what a real cessation of hostilities would look like”.
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Obama and Putin discussed getting humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on combating militant groups, the US administration official said.
