Syria: Homs rebel stronghold seized by troops

The Khalidiya neighbourhood of Homs has reportedly been recaptured by Syrian army forces. Picture: AFP/Getty

Syrian TV aired footage from the area, showing troops roaming deserted streets and waving flags in front of shell-scarred buildings.

Two opposition activists in the area who could normally be contacted via Skype were offline yesterday.

Government troops launched a sweeping offensive to retake rebel-held areas of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, a month ago.

Even if small pockets of resistance remain, the fall of Khaldiyeh to regime troops appeared to be a foregone conclusion, and its capture the second major setback to rebels in central Syria in as many months.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group, however, said there was still scattered fighting in southern areas of the neighbourhood.

In early June, regime forces captured the strategic town of Qusair in Homs province near the border with Lebanon. Troops have also captured Talkalakh, another border town in the province. The province of Homs is Syria’s largest, and runs from the Lebanese frontier in the west all the way to the border with Iraq and Jordan in the east.

The city of Homs holds strategic value because it serves as a crossroads: the main highway from Damascus to the north as well as the coastal region, which is a stronghold of president Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect, runs through Homs.

Khaldiyeh had a population of about 80,000 but only some 2,000 remain there today as residents fled the violence, activists say. The heavy fighting over the past two years has caused extensive damage, with some buildings reduced to rubble.

In a report yesterday morning, Syrian state TV said: “The Syrian army has restored security and stability in the whole neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh in Homs.”

A Syrian TV reporter embedded with troops in the area gave a live report standing in front of damaged buildings. He interviewed an army officer who said the troops fought a tough battle against rebels who mined buildings and fought from underground tunnels.

“As of this morning, our armed forces in cooperation with the (pro-government paramilitary) National Defence Forces have taken control of Khaldiyeh and are now cleansing the neighbourhood,” said the officer, surrounded by about a dozen soldiers and plainclothes security agents.

“The fate of terrorists will be under our feet,” he said, claiming that all Homs will be soon “cleansed” of rebels.

The observatory has said that troops are backed by members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. Hezbollah, which did not acknowledge whether its members are fighting in Khaldiyeh, played a major role in a battle last month in Qusair, outside Homs, and lost scores of men there.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said government troops have captured most of the neighbourhood apart from some fighting on its southern areas. Another opposition activist, said the battle in Khaldiyeh “is almost over”. He acknowledged that troops are almost in full control of the area.

In the northern city of Aleppo, several rebel factions including the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, attacked army posts in two neighbourhoods in an offensive titled “Amputating Infidels” the observatory said.

It said rebels captured several buildings in the neighbourhoods of Dahret Abed Rabbo and Lairamoun, and that eight government soldiers were killed.

Rebels have been on the offensive in Aleppo province and last week captured the strategic town of Khan el-Assal. Activists and state media said scores of troops were killed there after their capture. The western-backed Syrian National Council condemned the killings.

In the southern region of Quneitra, on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, government troops captured the town of Mashara on Sunday night after intense fighting, the observatory said.