Syrian Rebels Hold Recent Gains as Fighting Escalates Around Homs

Rebels Claim Several Cities Gained as Military Shells Area

Bloody fighting was reported across the Homs Province, with rebel mouthpiece the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claiming 69 people killed across Syria, and both rebels and military pushing hard for strategically important cities on the outskirts of Homs.

Though the exact situation on the ground is next to impossible to divine given the lack of media present, the rebels had reportedly dislodged the regime from several key bases around the cities.

The regime, for its part, seems to be relying more and more on artillery in their attempts to dislodge the rebels from these new positions, taken up since they abandoned the ceasefire in earnest two weeks ago. So far they don’t seem to have had much success.

The use of artillery is dangerous with the fighting happening so close to civilian populations, and the rebels have shown themselves eager to claim the large civilian death tolls in such cases, even if in some cases the UN monitors’ reports don’t bear out their allegations.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.