ISIS said it was responsible for a suicide attack in the Syrian government-controlled city of Homs on Tuesday that killed several people.
The Islamist militant group said in an online statement that one of its fighters had driven a car loaded with explosives to a security checkpoint in the Zahraa neighbourhood and blown himself up, killing at least 30 people.
Syrian state media said the attack had killed 22 people and wounded more than 100.
In a breaking news alert, state television said 100 people had also been injured in the blasts in the Al-Zahraa neighbourhood of the city, which has been targeted in bomb attacks multiple times before.
The provincial governor of Homs, Talal Barazi, told AFP at least 19 people had been killed in the attacks.
He said the two bombers appeared to have pulled up at the army checkpoint in a car together, with one exiting the vehicle before the other detonated his explosives while still inside.
In the chaos of the first blast’s aftermath, and as a crowd gathered, the second bomber detonated his explosives, Barazi said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, also reported the blasts, saying at least 21 people had been killed, among them 13 regime forces.
The group’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said the second suicide bomber had been wearing military clothes.
The Al-Zahraa district of Homs has been targeted in multiple bomb attacks in the past, including in late December, when 19 people were killed in several simultaneous blasts.
The residents of Al-Zahraa are mostly Alawites, the minority sect of Syria’s ruling clan, and the Islamic State group has in the past claimed attacks on the district.
Homs city was once dubbed the “capital” of Syria’s uprising, which began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
But after years of devastating fighting and government sieges, most of the city is now back in regime hands, with the exception of the Waer district, which is being gradually turned over to the government under a deal with opposition fighters.
