Syria blasts kill at least 120

BEIRUT, Lebanon : More than 120 people were killed Monday in a wave of bombings claimed by the Daesh group in northwestern Syria, the deadliest attacks yet in the regime’s coastal heartland. Seven near-simultaneous explosions targeted bus stations, hospitals and other civilian sites in the seaside cities of Jableh and Tartus, which until now had been relatively insulated from Syria’s five-year civil war. The unprecedented attacks on strongholds of President Bashar Assad’s regime came as IS faces increasing pressure in both Syria and Iraq, where Baghdad’s forces on Monday launched a major offensive to retake the jihadist-held city of Fallujah. Seventy-three people were killed in Jableh and another 48 in Tartus to the south, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said they were “without a doubt the deadliest attacks” on the two cities since the start of the war. Daesh claimed the blasts via its Amaq news agency, saying its fighters had attacked “Alawite gatherings” in Tartus and Jableh, referring to the minority sect from which the Assad clan hails. Daesh is not known to have a presence in Syria’s coastal provinces, where its jihadist rival and Al-Qaeda’s local branch Al-Nusra Front is much more prominent. AFP