Photo: AFP

Bomb blasts in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus have left more than 100 people dead, monitors and state media say.

In Homs, at least 57 people, mainly civilians, were killed in a double car bombing, a monitoring group reported.

At least four blasts later struck the southern Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, causing at least 50 deaths, the BBC reports.

So-called Islamic State has said it carried out the Damascus blasts.

Both Damascus and Homs have been targeted by Islamic State (IS) militants in the past.

Both attacks targeted areas dominated by minorities within Islam reviled by the Sunni Muslim radicals of IS.

In Homs, the blasts happened in a predominantly Alawite district, the sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

In Damascus, at least four explosions were reported in Sayyida Zeinab, the location of Syria’s holiest Shia Muslim shrine, said to contain the grave of the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter.

State television reported at least 50 dead and 200 wounded. Other reports put the death toll higher.

Homs, one of the early centres of the uprising against President Assad, was once dubbed the “capital of the revolution”.

But rebels left the city late last year under a ceasefire deal, leaving the city in government hands.