© SANA / Reuters
Islamic State militants claimed the attacks saying via its news outlet, Amaq, that "gatherings of Alawites in Tartous and Jableh" had been targeted. The Alawites is the minority sect to which President Bashar Assad belongs.
According to Ikhbariya TV, there were up to three explosions in the coastal town of Jableh near the local railway terminal. RIA Novosti and state TV also report a fourth explosion, at the emergency unit of a local hospital.
The blasts left over 45 people dead, police sources initially told RIA. Then the joint death toll was raised to over 100.
Sham FM radio claims that the first explosion in Jableh occurred at the entrance to the town, where a car with an estimated equivalent of 250 kg of TNT inside blew up.
Another three explosions were reportedly carried out by suicide bombers, and at least one of them was believed to be a woman.
Three more blasts were reported in a residential area of another coastal town, Tartus, eyewitnesses told RIA Novosti.
At least 20 were killed there, SANA and RIA Novosti said citing police sources.
According to Syrian state TV, one of the Tartus explosions was a car bomb, while another was caused by a suicide bomber.
Both towns targeted by Monday attacks are close to facilities used by the Russian task force in Syria.
The port of Tartus has been used for years by the Russian Navy as a feeder base. The port has been extensively used for delivering military supplies to the Russian contingent in the country.
The Martyr Basil al-Assad International Airport, next to Jableh, has hosted Russia's Khmeimim airbase and reconciliation center since September 2015.
The series of terror attacks in Syria exposes "how fragile the situation in Syria is," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, stressing that the Syria peace negotiation process needs "energetic steps" to go forward.
Comment: Could this be an effort to draw Russia more deeply militarily into Syria? Or just continue to stall any possible diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis? The Syrian foreign ministry sent letters to the UN chief and security council in response, saying: "These terrorist attacks constitute a dangerous escalation on the part of the regimes of hatred and radicalism in Riyadh, Ankara and Doha, and are directed at derailing efforts to save lives of Syrians, derailing the Geneva talks and the cessation of hostilities."
Syrian special forces managed to arrest one suicide bomber who reportedly planned to blow himself up near a hospital in Jabla. He belonged to Ahrar ash-Sham, the U.S.'s non-terrorist terrorist organization notorious for killing civilians and breaking the ceasefire in recent months. Go figure.