Det siges stadigt, at IS er for nedadgående. Mandag sendte de fem selvmordsbombere ind i alawittenes kerneområder ved Latakia og Tartous. 145 blev dræbt.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 145 people were killed in attacks by at least five suicide bombers and two devices planted in cars. State media said 78 people had been killed in what is Assad’s coastal heartland.

The attacks were the first of their kind in Tartous, capital of Tartous province and home to a Russian naval facility, and Jableh in Latakia province, near a Russian-operated air base.

Det er et sviende nederlag, ikke bare for Assad og alawittene, men også for Putin.

Islamic State claimed the attacks in a statement posted online by the group’s Amaq news agency, saying its fighters had targeted “gatherings of Alawites”.

De to byer har indtil nu undgået de verste krigshandlinger. At ramme alawittene i deres kerneland svækker deres kampmoral.

One of the four blasts in Jableh hit near a hospital and another at a bus station. The Tartous bombs also targeted a bus station, the Observatory and state media reported.

Younes Hassan, a doctor working at the Jableh hospital, said he heard an explosion at the bus station, followed less than a minute later by the blast at the hospital.

“Everything went into emergency mode, wounded people began arriving,” he told Reuters by phone.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-latakia-idUSKCN0YE0PB