A wave of simultaneous attacks occurred throughout Syria on Monday, leaving 48 dead. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks which include 6 suicide bombings that all targeted areas under government and Kurdish control.
Tartus, Homs, Hasakeh, and the capital city, Damascus, were the locations of the attacks. The Islamic State has lost considerable ground in Syria due to a concentrated effort by Syrian government forces, Kurdish forces, U.S forces, and Russian forces. While the territory of the Islamic State has been reduced, the terrorist group has been able to maintain contacts to carry out random and improvised attacks. The bombing that occurred in a suburb of Damascus targeted military officials where the bomber, operating out of a car, was able to infiltrate and breach a heavily guarded area in the city.
“It’s an area that houses officers and their families,” said media activist Yousef al-Boustani to the New York Times.
Perhaps the most deadly of the attacks on Monday occurred on the Tartus-Homs highway and at a military checkpoint just outside of Tartus’ southern entrance. In total 35 were killed in the attack with many more wounded.
The other incidents that occurred in Homs, Damascus and Hasakeh had much smaller casualties. The governor of the Homs province announced that three soldiers and a civilian were killed in the car bombing that happened there. Eight were killed by a motorcyclist rigged with explosives in Hasakeh, all of which were civilians. Another attack that occurred in the provincial capital of Homs saw four soldiers killed.
Amaq News Agency, which is believed to be a news source for the Islamic State, were the first to report the bombings and attribute them to ISIS. Syrian state TV and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights both report that the total number of casualties in Monday’s attacks total to 48 deaths. One final explosion occurred in the northeastern city of Qamishli, though there have yet to be any reported deaths at this time.
