The attacks hit the cities of Tartus and Jableh [EPA/SANA handout]

by Al Jazeera

More than 120 people have been killed in multiple attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group in areas controlled by the Syrian government, a monitoring group said.

Syrian state TV also reported the attacks, putting the death toll at 78.

Simultaneous car bombs and suicide bombers hit bus stations, hospitals and elsewhere in the coastal cities of Tartus and Jableh in Latakia province on Monday, appearing to severely breach government defences, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Footage broadcast by the state-run Ikhbariya news channel of what it said were scenes of the blasts in Jableh showed several twisted and incinerated cars and minivans.

Pictures circulated om social media showed dead bodies in the back of pick-up vans and charred body parts on the ground.

The Syrian Observatory said that at least 73 people were killed in Jableh, and 48 in Tartus.

It said there were seven explosions that ripped through both locations simultaneously: Four in Jableh, including three suicide bombs and one car bomb, and four in Tartus, two suicide bombers and one car bomb.

Hospital blast

In Jableh, dozens were killed when a car bomb went off near a bus station, followed by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt inside the station. Two men blew themselves up at the electricity company and outside the emergency entrance of a city hospital.

Dozens more were killed in Tartus when a car bomb went off in the bus station, and then two men blew themselves up when people gathered, according to the observatory.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack through one of its media arms, Amaq.

“It is the first time in this war that simultaneous attacks of this scale took place in Latakia,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep in neighbouring Turkey, said.

A Russian naval base is located in Latakia and Jableh is extremely close to a Russian airbase, Dekker said.

The Kremlin made a brief statement expressing concern about the attacks, adding that rising tension in the country underscored the need to continue with peace talks.

At least 27 killed and ISIL defence posts destroyed in area controlled by armed group, according to Syrian state media.

Air raids destroyed a fifth-century Church in Daret Azza village, said activists [Reuters/FILE]

Turkish and US-led coalition forces have struck Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) targets north of the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 27 fighters, according to state-run Anadolu Agency and other media reports.

Turkish artillery and rocket launchers fired into Syria while warplanes from the US-led coalition carried out three separate air campaigns, Anadolu said on Monday citing military sources.

Five fortified defence posts and two gun posts were also destroyed in the attack less than 10km from Turkey’s Syria border.

Turkish and coalition forces have carried out a series of such strikes recently to prevent further attacks on the Turkish border town of Kilis, which lies just across the frontier from ISIL-controlled territory in Syria, and has been regularly struck by rockets in recent weeks.

The US and Turkey have for months been discussing a military plan to drive ISIL from the border.

Elsewhere in Aleppo, fighting continued as government-backed armed groups said they took back two villages north of the battered Syrian city from ISIL.

Government’s deadly airborne raids also destroyed a fifth-century church, the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites in the village of Daret Azza, according to Syrian activists.

The fighting was focused around a strategic area that leads in and out of the rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo.

Claims and counterclaims

On Saturday, ISIL launched offensive in the east of the country in Deir Az Zor, but Syrian government troops fought back, and claimed to have retaken a hospital and a dormitory from the armed group which has seized territory in Syria and Iraq.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, said: “It’s been a battle back and forth in a small pocket of Deir Az Zor city under the control of the government.

“However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group is saying that the 95 percent of the city is under ISIL control which is in an oil-rich area.”

Meanwhile, John Kerry met King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia and its Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign minister, as part of diplomatic push aimed at ending the five-year-old war in Syria.

Kerry will head to Vienna to push for more international cooperation on ending the conflict that has left more than 240,000 people. He will also go to Brussels for meetings with NATO leaders.

A tenuous ceasefire has been in place since February brokered by Russia and the US, but Syria has continued to bomb rebel-controlled areas in Aleppo.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in the recent upsurge of violence.

Once Syria’s commercial heartland, Aleppo is now divided between the government-held west and the rebel-controlled east.

At least 20 government strikes hit Damascus suburbs as UN Security Council calls meeting to discuss escalating violence.

People inspect damaged buildings targeted by air strikes in Deir al-Asafir district, in the Damascus suburbs [Mohammed Badra/EPA]

At least 20 Syrian government air strikes have peppered the Damascus suburbs after a temporary truce agreement expired, a monitoring group said.

Staffan de Mistura’s estimate, which far exceeds those given by UN in the past, is not an official number.

De Mistura appealed to all involved parties to help revamp negotiations between government and opposition [Denis Balibouse/Reuters]

The UN special envoy for Syria has estimated that 400,000 people have been killed throughout the last five years of civil war, urging major and regional powers to help salvage a crumbling ceasefire.

Explaining that the death toll was based on his own estimate, Staffan de Mistura said on Friday that it was not an official UN statistic.

“We had 250,000 as a figure two years ago,” said de Mistura. “Well, two years ago was two years ago.”

The UN no longer keeps track of the death toll due to the inaccessibility of many areas and the complications of navigating conflicting statistics put forward by the Syrian government and armed opposition groups.

Fighting has flared up in many parts of the country as the fragile ceasefire appears to be falling apart.

Government air strikes killed at least 13 in the eastern countryside of Damascus on Saturday, while air strikes and barrel bombs left several dead and injured in the Bab al-Tariq area of Homs, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

De Mistura also appealed to all involved parties to help revamp negotiations between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and opposition groups.

“Yes we do need certainly a new ISSG at ministerial level,” the envoy said, referring to the International Syria Support Group which includes the United States, Russia, the European Union, Iran, Turkey and Arab states.

De Mistura compared the apparently stalled political talks on Syria’s future, the unravelling ceasefire agreement and the still limited humanitarian relief deliveries to the three legs of a table.

“The level of danger to the table made of three legs – and a table of three legs is always fragile by definition – [means that help] is urgently required,” he said.

“When one of them is in difficulty we can make it. When all three of them are finding some difficulty, it’s time to call the ISSG.”

He gave no date or venue for the high-level ISSG.

The envoy said he planned to continue peace talks next week, despite the “worrisome trends on the ground”, adding that he would seek clarity from government negotiators about their interpretation of political transition.

“Is this going to be cosmetic, is this going to be real, and if it is real what does it mean for the opposition and so on?” he said.

Opposition negotiators have rejected any proposal which leaves Assad in power. They have also accused the government of violating a February “cessation of hostilities” agreement, pointing to air strikes on rebel-held areas which have killed dozens of people this week.

At least 10 people reportedly killed in Aleppo bombardment during Friday prayers.

Air strikes hit several areas across the city as locals attended Friday prayers [File: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters]

Air strikes launched by the Syrian government have killed several civilians and injured dozens in the northern city of Aleppo as the ceasefire between the government and opposition groups crumbles.

At least 10 people were killed across Aleppo and several dozen injured in the attacks, according to sources on the ground.

The strikes targeted four different, predominantly civilian areas in the city, said Zouhir Al Shimale, a local journalist.

“These are all civilian areas, and people were near or at the mosques when the strikes hit,” he told Al Jazeera by telephone, estimating that at least 30 civilians were injured in the Bustan al-Qasr area alone.

“The bombardment happened during the Friday prayers. I was on the way prayers when it happened in the al-Mashhad [neighbourhood]. People started going out of the mosque and running.”

Shimale said Aleppo’s streets mostly emptied following the attacks, with people rushing home to avoid being in open spaces.

“People have gotten used to it. They know that at any moment, the regime could strike again.”

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, government air strikes also targeted towns across Syria’s Idlib province, killing at least three civilians.

Negotiations collapse

The Syrian conflict started as a largely unarmed uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but has since morphed into a full-on civil war that has claimed the lives of more than 260,000 people, according to the United Nations’ statistics.

The opposition cited the dire humanitarian situation and the Syrian army offensive when it walked out of peace talks in Geneva this week, saying it needed a “pause”. The future of Assad also proved a major sticking point.

The already shaky ceasefire between the government and some rebels was severely strained on Tuesday when at least 44 people were killed in air strikes on two markets in the northwest.

The Geneva talks are aimed at ending the five-year war by fashioning a political transition, writing a new constitution, and holding fresh elections by September 2017.

Ceasefire in doubt as groups announce new “battle” in response to what they say are violations from the Assad side.

The opposition said it was willing to create a transitional body with government members, but not Assad himself [Fabrice Coffrini/Reuters]

Several Syrian rebel groups have announced a new offensive against the government in a move they said was a response to ceasefire violations from the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

The groups, which included factions fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and Ahrar al-Sham, said in a joint statement on Monday that they would respond with force to any army units that fired on civilians in what they called a fresh “battle”.

The statement was sent to the Reuters news agency by Mohamed Rasheed, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group.

It said the groups would set up a joint operations room and gave no further details about where any fighting might take place.

A ceasefire deal in place since February has been strained to breaking point, particularly around the divided city of Aleppo, with each side blaming the other for an escalation that has underlined the huge challenge facing peace talks that are currently being held in Geneva.

Heavy air strikes were also reported north of Homs on Monday, killing at least four people, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The main opposition bloc in Geneva, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), accused the government of sending a message that it did not want a political solution, but a military solution that the opposition said would destroy the country.