BEIRUT – A car bomb struck a
pro-government neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs on
Sunday, killing at least 10 people, setting cars on fire and sending
thick plumes of black smoke into the sky, activists and a government
official said.
The blast in the Zahra district, which is predominantly inhabited by
Alawites and Christians, sent tremors through Homs, where rebels and the
government have struck two cease-fire deals this month that have
restored at least a semblance of peace to the shattered city. The
provincial governor, Talal Barazi, said the attack targeted such
reconciliation efforts.
An official in the Homs governor's office said 10 people were killed
in Sunday's explosion and more than 40 were wounded. The official spoke
on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the
media.
The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
activist group, Rami Abdurrahman, put the death toll at 12. He also
said more than 40 were wounded.
Casualty figures frequently vary in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Syria.
Syrian state television blamed the bombing on "terrorists," the term
it uses to describe those fighting to oust President Bashar Assad. The
channel broadcast footage that showed cars on fire and people trying to
push other vehicles away from the blast site.
Abdurrahman also said another explosion hit the Zahra area, although the nature of the blast was unclear.
A third blast struck the outskirts of Homs on the road heading west
toward the city of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast, the provincial
official and Abdurrahman said. The official in the governor's office
said at least 13 people were wounded in that blast.
Homs was one of the first cities to rise up against Assad, and came
to be known as the "capital of the revolution." In a bitter setback
early this month, rebels who had been besieged in the Old City reached
an agreement with the government that granted the opposition gunmen safe
passage out of the city.
Source Fox News
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