Syria's Homs Pounded By Army And Hezbollah Militants
BEIRUT — Backed by Lebanese Hezbollah militants, Syrian troops unleashed some of the civil war's heaviest bombardments on the central city of Homs on Friday, pounding opposition-held areas with artillery and airstrikes for the sixth straight day, activists said.
In Geneva, the U.N. agency for human rights said it is "extremely concerned about the human rights and humanitarian impact" of the government offensive in Syria's third largest city.
Homs is the latest target of a series of government offensives aimed at driving rebels out of areas they control.
A city of about 1 million people, it has been an opposition stronghold since the early days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad. Mass Arab Spring-inspired protests there, starting in early 2011, brought repeated army offensives onto the city. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands driven from their homes.
The government now controls much of Homs, though several neighborhoods in the center are still opposition strongholds. Building on its capture of the strategic town of Qusair between the Lebanese border and Homs last month, the army launched an offensive Saturday, battling rebels in the old part of Homs and the northern district of Khaldiyeh, where fighters are entrenched.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/syrian-homs-pounded_n_3550362.html
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