Six explosions hit government-controlled areas and a province held by a Kurdish militia in Syria on Monday morning, killing dozens of people, state media and a monitor said.
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ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq said the jihadist group had claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were suicide operations targeting the Syrian government and a Kurdish security force.
“A suicidal terrorist exploded his vehicle bomb at Arzounah bridge at the entrance of Tartous city, then another terrorist detonated his explosive belt amid the citizens who have rushed to help the authorities rescue the wounded, claiming the lives of 30 citizens and injuring 43 others”, The Foreign Ministry said in two letters sent to the UN Secretary General and President of Security council. Another explosion followed when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt among a crowd who gathered to help the wounded in the first blast in Tartus.
Reports say blasts also happened in the city of Homs and on a road outside Damascus.
The state television, SANA also reported a blast in the Sabbourah suburb of Damascus.
It was not clear if the blasts were linked and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
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 Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that attack targeted a checkpoint and gave a toll of three dead.
An Islamic State attacker on a motorcycle blew himself up in the northeastern city of Hasakeh, killing eight, SANA said.
“The attacks seem to have taken place at the same time, which leaves many to wonder whether this was a coordinated attack”, said Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Gazientep on the Turkish side of the border with Syria. The blasts occurred in majorly government-controlled areas, killing at least 30 people in President Bashar al-Assad’s stronghold Tartus.
They came a day after Turkish forces and allied rebels seized the last part of the Turkish-Syrian border under IS control.
Syria’s conflict, which began in 2011 with peaceful protests, has evolved into a sectarian civil war that has killed over 280,000 people, displaced millions and drawn in regional and worldwide powers.
IS said a suicide auto bomb targeted a military checkpoint west of Damascus. The Observatory said it hit an army checkpoint, killing four officers.
Tartus has been largely spared the worst violence of Syria’s conflict since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
Mr Obama described talks with Mr Putin as tough but “productive” after their meeting at the G20 summit in China.
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The city, which is Syria’s third-largest, is largely under government control, with only one neighborhood still held by rebels.
