String Of Attacks In Pro-Regime Cities In Syria Leave Scores Dead

By Camila Domonoske

Published May 23, 2016 at 7:32 AM EDT

Syrians gather at the site of multiple bombings in the northern coastal city of Jableh, between Latakia and Tartus, on Monday. Scores of people were killed in a spate of bombings in two regime bastions along Syria's coast. A total of seven blasts simultaneously, four in Jableh and three in Tartus, hit the two cities on Monday morning.

Suicide attacks in two pro-regime cities in Syria have left scores of people dead.

The bombings were claimed by the Islamic State, The Associated Press reports.

Tartus and Jableh, the two cities struck by a series of attacks on Monday, are both regime strongholds on Syria's coast, NPR's Alison Meuse reports.

Syrian news agency SANA says at least 78 people died in the attacks; a nonprofit human rights monitoring group says the death toll is even higher.

The string of attacks included suicide bombers and rockets targeting multiple bus stations and a suicide bomber at a hospital, the AP says.

"The attacks are a rare occurrence in the normally quiet and pro-government cities," the AP writes. "Russia keeps a naval base in Tartus and an air base in Latakia province. Insurgents maintain a presence in rural Latakia."

Reuters reports that the two cities had, until now, escaped the worst of Syria's war; neither community had suffered an attack like this before.

"Fighting has increased in other parts of Syria in recent weeks as world powers struggle to revive a threadbare ceasefire and resurrect peace talks that collapsed in Geneva this year," Reuters notes.

Update on May 24: The death toll from Monday's violence is now believed to be more than 150. The World Health Organization says 43 of the dead were doctors, nurses, patients and relatives at a hospital in Jableh.