Dozens die in suicide bombings across Syrian cities held by Assad forces

Dozens of people have been killed in an apparently coordinated string of bombings across government-held cities in Syria, as battles that have drawn in regional and international powers rage throughout an embattled country carved into competing spheres of influence.

Syrian state media said at least 40 people had died in six suicide bombings in the city of Homs in central Syria, the suburbs of Damascus, the suburbs of the coastal city of Tartus, and the Kurdish-controlled Hasakah city. Dozens more have been wounded.

Police in Tartus said a car bomb detonated on the main road leading into the city, and a second suicide bomber killed several who had gathered in the aftermath, killing 30 people and wounding 45. Two other bombings near Damascus killed one person and injured three, while a car bomb in Homs city killed four people and injured 10.

In Hasakah, which is controlled predominantly by Kurdish paramilitaries known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), five people were killed in the city centre after a motorbike laden with explosives was detonated. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on its news agency Amaq.

Tartus has remained loyal to the government of Bashar al-Assad throughout five years of civil war and has been largely spared the destruction wrought on other parts of the country, emerging as a relative haven for refugees who wished to remain in Syria. The area is also home to Russian naval and air force facilities, with Moscow directing its aerial campaign in Syria from there.

In May, Tartus and neighbouring Jableh city was hit by a string of suicide bombings orchestrated by Isis, in which 184 people were killed and more than 200 wounded.

The latest bombings came amid multiple battlefield defeats by Isis and other significant developments over the weekend that have added another layer of complexity and suffering to a war that has claimed nearly half a million lives and displaced half the population.

In Aleppo, which has been divided for four years into interlaced zones of opposition and regime control, forces loyal to Assad succeeded on Sunday in reimposing a siege on the rebel-held eastern districts, only a month after it was lifted in a rebel offensive.

The Syrian government and opposition activists said troops loyal to Assad, backed by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, took control of a military complex and academy south-west of the city in an area called Ramouseh, once again severing rebel supply lines that had linked the besieged eastern half of the city with territory controlled by the opposition in the surrounding countryside.

A rebel coalition known as Jaysh al-Fateh – which includes the former al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, previously known as al-Nusra Front – had succeeded in breaking the siege by taking control of Ramouseh, though little aid had made it through the battle-scarred neighbourhood.