Tortosa was recaptured by Saladin in 1188, and the main Templar headquarters relocated to Cyprus. However, in Tortosa, some Templars were able to retreat into the keep, which they continued to use as a base for the next 100 years. They steadily added to its fortifications until it also fell, in 1291. Tortosa was the last outpost of the Templars on the Syrian mainland, after which they retreated to a garrison on the nearby island of Arwad, which they held for another decade. After the occupation by the Mamluks, the city lost its prestige, which it regained only under the Ottoman rule. Ottoman era During the Ottoman rule, the city gained importance mainly due to trade with Cyprus and Europe. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, it became one of the coastal defense points due to its strategic port. In 1832, at the beginning of the First Egyptian-Ottoman War, the city and its surroundings were conquered by Muhammad Ali Pasha, then ruler of Egypt. In 1839, the Ottoman Empire decided to reconquer its Syrian coastal territories from Egypt with the support of Great Britain. In 1840, during the Syrian War, British frigates HMS , HMS and , with the help of a landing force of marines, attacked the citadel in Tartus. Despite heavy losses among the marines, the British were unable to capture the fort. After the war, the city returned to the Ottoman Empire, where it remained until 1918. Modern era On May 23, 2016, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings at a bus station in Tartus, which had remained largely unaffected since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011. Purportedly targeting Alawite gatherings, the bombs killed 48 people. In Jableh, similarly insulated, another four bombers killed over a hundred people. Geography The city lies on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea bordered by the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range to the east. Arwad, the only inhabited island on the Syrian coast, is located a few kilometers off the shore of Tartus. Tartus occupies most of the coastal plain, surrounded to the east by mountains composed mainly of limestone and, in certain places around the town of Souda, basalt. Climate Tartus has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen (Csa) with mild, wet winters, hot and dry summers, and short transition periods in April and October. The hills to the east