(Associated Press) – A suicide bomber who targeted a hospital in a Syrian coastal city the previous day killed 43 people, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, as an activist group raised the overall death toll from the day’s unprecedented wave of attacks on government strongholds to 161. The attacks — seven bombings altogether — targeted civilians in the coastal cities of Tartus and Jableh for the first time in the country’s five-year war, raising fears of more violence among residents living in government bastions who have enjoyed relative quiet. The wave of explosions also underlined the inability of world powers to jumpstart Syrian peace talks in Geneva as the violence worsens and reaches new areas.
