by The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff
President Bashar Assad's army hits rebel bastion city with artillery, tanks and warplanes in a drive to capture rebel-held neighborhoods • Reports from Lebanon: Senior Hezbollah and Syrian officials killed by rebels in ambush on convoy.
A Homs resident stands in the rubble of buildings destroyed by army shelling
Photo credit: AP  |
Government troops launched a series of attacks in central Syria Saturday, striking with artillery, tanks and warplanes in a drive to capture rebel-held neighborhoods in the country's third largest city, Homs, activists said.
President Bashar Assad's army has been on the offensive in Homs province in recent weeks, reclaiming some of the territory it has lost to the rebels since Syria's crisis began 27 months ago.
The military, building on its capture of the strategic town of Qusair between the Lebanese border and Homs at the beginning of this month, has overrun a number of nearby villages. It also has hammered the center of the city, a rebel stronghold since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011.
Homs, a city of about one million, has shown great sympathy for the opposition since the early days of the uprising. A month after it started, protesters carried mattresses, food and water to the main Clock Square, hoping to emulate Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt's revolt that overthrew Hosni Mubarak.
Activists in the city said all cellular lines were cut early Saturday before warplanes pounded rebel-held areas. The air raids were followed by intense shelling with artillery, mortars and tanks, before troops tried to advance.
Several activists in the city said the regime began bringing in reinforcements since last week, apparently in preparation for the attack.
Two activists said about 400 shells struck rebel-held areas such as Qusour, Jouret el-Shayah, Old Homs and Khaldiyeh.
"This is the worst campaign against the city since the revolution began. They are using all types of weapons," an activist in the rebel-held old quarter of the city said via Skype, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes hit two districts in the center of the city. It said the army also fired mortar shells into the neighborhoods.
An activist from the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh said tanks were also involved in the bombardment, and that the military was trying to push into the area from all sides.
Shelling has been continuous since 10 a.m. in that area and in nearby Old Homs, activist Tariq Bardakhan told The Associated Press via Skype.
"Today is one of the most violent days that Homs has witnessed since the beginning of the revolution," he said.
The observatory said both sides had sustained casualties, but did not have numbers.
Syrian state TV said the army has had "great success" in the battle for Homs after "killing many terrorists in the Khaldiyeh district."
Syrian state media refers to rebels fighting to oust Assad from power as "terrorists" and say they are mercenaries of the West and their Gulf Arab allies who are conspiring against Damascus.
Also Saturday, the observatory and the Aleppo Media Center said a missile hit Aleppo's Katourji neighborhood, killing and wounding several people. The observatory said at least three people were killed while the media center said the death toll could be as high as 15.
An amateur video showed two buildings that had several top stories knocked out. Panicked residents ran to help evacuate wounded people, including children. A boy, his head covered with a bloodied white cloth, was being rushed away as people chanted, "God is great."
Another man carried a wounded child and ran in a street filled with debris. At least one dead person was seen being carried away.
The military has gained momentum after capturing Qusair earlier this month with the help of Hezbollah fighters, capturing villages on the roads linking the capital to the border area with Jordan and Lebanon.
The rebels have also claimed some victories, marking a successful end to a two-week battle in the south Friday by capturing an army checkpoint in the city of Daraa, the provincial capital of the region that carries the same name.
Daraa is the birthplace of the uprising against Assad and rebels hope to one day launch an offensive from there to take the capital.
The observatory reported heavy fighting around the province on Saturday with clashes between the rebels and army troops concentrated in the town of Jassem after the army brought in reinforcements.
In related news, Russian TV news channel Al-Yaum broadcasting in Arabic and headquartered in Moscow, with ties to the Syrian regime and Russian government, reported on Saturday that all Russian citizens based in Syria would be evacuated from the country in coming days.
Meanwhile, Lebanese media outlets reported that on Friday a convoy carrying senior Syrian and Hezbollah officials was attacked on the main highway from Beirut to Damascus. According to reports the convoy was attacked near the Syrian border and at least eight people were killed. Initial reports from the scene stated that a rebel force ambushed the convoy, hitting it with a roadside bomb.
The Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar news site denied that senior members of the terrorist group were killed in an attack, reporting instead that an Israeli attempt to hit a Syrian army supply convoy was thwarted near the Lebanese-Syrian border.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10347
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