{"id":216461,"date":"2016-05-23T14:14:42","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T14:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=216461"},"modified":"2016-05-23T14:14:42","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T14:14:42","slug":"deadly-blasts-hit-assad-strongholds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=216461","title":{"rendered":"Deadly blasts hit Assad strongholds"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 78 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in two government strongholds on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, state media say.<\/p>\n

A suicide bomber and a car bomb blew up within minutes of each other at a bus station in the port city of Tartous.<\/p>\n

A bus station and a hospital were also among the targets of four bombings in Jableh, a town to the north.<\/p>\n

A news agency linked to so-called Islamic State (IS) said the jihadist group was behind the attacks.<\/p>\n

Amaq cited an IS source as saying militants had targeted “gatherings of Alawites”, a reference to the heterodox Shia sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.<\/p>\n

Russia – a key backer of Mr Assad – has a naval base in Tartous and an airbase near Jableh, from where it has conducted air strikes on IS targets across Syria.<\/p>\n

The state news agency, Sana, cited a police source as saying that 45 people were killed and many others, most of them women and children, were injured in Jableh.<\/p>\n

It reported that two bombs exploded at the main entrance of the town’s bus station.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Aftermath
Jableh’s bus station was also targeted, along with the town’s hospital<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
\n
\"Aftermath
A media outlet linked to IS said the jihadist group had claimed responsibility for the attacks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

A suicide bomber also blew himself up at the entrance of the emergency department at Jableh National Hospital, it added.<\/p>\n

The fourth blast reportedly occurred near the offices of Jableh’s electricity directorate, on the outskirts of the Amara residential district.<\/p>\n

In Tartous, more than 33 people were killed and 47 injured, Sana said.<\/p>\n

A car bomb was detonated at the main gate to the city’s bus station, while a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest inside the facility, it added.<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/span><\/figure>\n

Another bomber blew himself up in a residential area in the west of the city, according to Sana.<\/p>\n

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group which relies on a network of sources on the ground, reported that 53 people were killed in Jableh and another 48 in Tartous.<\/p>\n

Until now, both Tartous and Jableh had escaped the worst of the five-year war in Syria, which has left more than 250,000 people dead.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 78 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in two government strongholds on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, state media say. A suicide bomber and a car bomb blew up within minutes of each other at a bus station in the port city of Tartous. A bus station and a hospital were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":216463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/216463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}