At least 12 people were killed and dozens wounded on Tuesday in a rare attack in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, a regime bastion, state media reported. 

State television said two mortar rounds had killed at least 12 people and wounded 57 in residential neighbourhoods in the east of the city. 

Latakia lies in the the heartland of the minority Alawite sect to which Syria's ruling clan belongs and has been largely spared attack during four and a half years of civil war.