A wave of car and suicide bombings hit several government-controlled areas in Syria on Monday, state media reported, killing at least 38 people.
(LATimes)- The six explosions, all of which took place Monday between 8 and 9 a.m., struck Tartus, Homs, Damascus, Hasakah and Qamishli. Islamic State claimed responsibility for all of the attacks through its Amaq news agency.
The deadliest attack took place just outside Tartus, an idyllic coastal Mediterranean city considered to be a heartland area for Syria’s Alawites, members of a heterodox mountain sect of which Syrian President Bashar Assad is a part.
Thirty people were killed and 45 wounded, according to state news agency SANA, which broadcast images of damaged vehicles and blood spattered on nearby concrete barriers.
A suicide bomber first walked up to a checkpoint that was set up near the southern entrance of the city and detonated his explosives vest, Ghassan Hasan, an activist who runs the Tartous Today Facebook page, said over social media.