BEIRUT: Regime forces backed by Hezbollah now control half of the Khaldiyeh district of Homs after ousting rebels in fierce fighting in the central Syrian city, a watchdog said yesterday.
Syrian state media, meanwhile, accused insurgents yesterday of killing 123 people, the majority of them civilians, during a rebel offensive this week to take the northern town of Khan Al Assad.
“Loyalist forces backed by fighters from Hezbollah have advanced over the last 24 hours and now control 50 percent of Khaldiyeh,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Its chief Rami Abdel Rahman said that overnight, “there was continuous heavy mortar and artillery fire” and that the rebel district was still being pounded.
He said rebels were putting up “fierce resistance” amid “very intense clashes”.
Militant network the Syrian Revolution General Commission also reported heavy fighting in the district that has been besieged by regime forces for more than a year.
“Khaldiyeh is being targeted by an uninterrupted heavy bombardment, and on the ground there is fierce fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and regime forces backed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah trying to take the district,” an SRGC statement said.
It and the Observatory both said the Old City district of Homs was being pummelled too.
State news agency SANA said that “armed terrorist groups” committed a “massacre ... mutilating the bodies of the martyrs and throwing them in a big hole on the outskirts of the town, in addition to incinerating a number of (their) bodies.”
A day earlier, a rebel group calling itself the Supporters of the Islamic Caliphate posted a video on YouTube of around 30 bodies of young men who they said were pro-Assad militiamen.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad monitoring group, cited activists on Friday in Khan Al Assal who said that more than 150 soldiers were killed on Monday and Tuesday in and around the town, including 51 soldiers and officers who were executed.
AFP
