Blasts Hit Syria Regime Bastions: 101 Dead

Damascus, 15 Sha’ban 1437/23 May 2016 (MINA) – A series of bombings hit two Syrian regime bastion cities on Monday, leaving 72 people dead or wounded, state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Fifty-three people were killed in three bombings  at least two of them suicide attacks in the Mediterranean coastal city of Tartus, the monitoring group said.

Another 48 died in four bombings, three of them suicide blasts, in Jableh further north, the Observatory said. World Bulletin quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Abdel Rahman said the scale of the attacks on the two cities was “unprecedented”.

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Local media said “three terrorist explosions” hit a bus station in Tartus and others targeted facilities in Jableh including a hospital.

State television broadcast footage of the damaged bus station in Tartus, where charred mini-buses lay on their sides while others were still ablaze.

The two cities targeted are both strongholds of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad whose family hails from the village of Qardaha, just 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of Jableh.

They have been relatively insulated from the war raging in Syria, which has killed at least 270,000 people since March 2011. (L/P002)

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Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)