Bombs kill more than 140 in Syrian government-held cities -monitor

Record ID: 102351

  • Title: Bombs kill more than 140 in Syrian government-held cities -monitor
  • Date: 23rd May 2016
  • Summary: BLOOD STAINS ON THE GROUND
  • Embargoed: 7th June 2016 15:35
  • Keywords: suicide bombs explosions Syria Islamic State IS Tartous Jableh
  • Location: TARTOUS, SYRIA
  • City: TARTOUS, SYRIA
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Insurgencies
  • Reuters ID: LVA0024J1691J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Bomb blasts killed scores of people in Jableh and Tartous on Syria's Mediterranean coast on Monday (May 23) and wounded many others in the government-controlled territory that hosts Russian military bases, monitors and state media said.
    Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in the cities that have up to now escaped the worst of the violence in the five-year-old conflict, saying it was targeting members of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority.
    The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 145 people were killed in attacks by at least five suicide bombers and two devices planted in cars. State media said 78 people had been killed in what is Assad's coastal heartland.
    The attacks were the first of their kind in Tartous, capital of Tartous province and home to a Russian naval facility, and Jableh in Latakia province, near a Russian-operated air base.
    The Kremlin said the bomb blasts underscored the need to press ahead with Geneva peace talks after a Feb. 27 ceasefire collapsed in April as violence intensified in a war that has killed at least 250,000 people.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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