Explosions rock at least two Syrian cities; casualties reported

At least six explosions hit Syrian coastal cities on Monday, with many casualties reported, state TV and monitor groups said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least three blasts hit the Syrian city of Tartous on the Mediterranean coast, causing an unknown number of casualties.

The explosions took place shortly after at least two explosions hit Jableh, another coastal city further north, it said.

The blasts caused a number of casualties, the monitor group said, but did not provide further information.

On the other hand, Syrian al-Ikhbariya TV reported in a news flash that three explosions killed and wounded an unspecified number of people in Jableh, in Latakia province. It described the blasts as terrorist attacks.

The TV station said the explosions occurred near a local railway terminal.

Russian RIA Novosti also reported a fourth explosion at the emergency unit of a local hospital in the city.

None of the Syrian fighting groups claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.

The explosions came hours after Free Syrian Army, the mainstream Syrian opposition fighting group, announced that it would the ceasefire as totally collapsed if the Syrian government and allied Lebanese Hezbollah militants did not end a major assault on their positon in the suburbs of Damascus within 48 hours.

On Sunday, opposition-held areas in Aleppo faced the heaviest airstrikes since February as the last opposition-held supply road, Castello, was the main target of the attack.

Despite a Russian- and US-led so-called “cessation of hostilities" deal between fighting groups and Assad regime, the regime forces repeatedly violated the deal and continued bombing opposition areas.

Dozens of civilians were killed the airstrikes on residential areas in opposition-held towns and cities in the last week.

The joint statement by the Free Syrian Army, signed by nearly 40 opposition groups across Syria, said that once the two-day period had ended, opposition groups would respond with “all the legitimate means to defend the civilians living in these areas."

In their joint statement, the opposition said the continued attacks by the army on the besieged opposition-held areas around Damascus and their strongholds in the northern city of Aleppo and Idlib province were putting peace-making efforts at risk.

Opposition brigades were considering withdrawing from a "futile political process," they said, which "gives legitimate cover to continue the crimes and massacres by the criminal Assad regime and its allies."