{{Syrian troops have advanced into rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, occupying buildings after pummeling the area with artillery that drove out opposition fighters, an activist said Saturday.}}<\/p>\n
The push into Khaldiyeh district was the first significant gain for troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who have been waging an eight-day campaign to seize parts of the central Syrian city in rebel hands for over a year.<\/p>\n
Tariq Badrakhan, an activist based in the neighborhood, said government troops used rockets, mortars and cannon fire to flush out the area’s “first line of defenses” on Friday evening. <\/p>\n
The offensive continued Saturday morning, he said via Skype, as explosions were heard in the background.<\/p>\n
“We feel like they are shaking the sky,” Badrakhan said.<\/p>\n
Another activist said eight rebels were killed in the fighting. He requested anonymity because rebels have accused him in the past of damaging their morale by reporting their casualties.<\/p>\n
Syria has been embroiled in a civil war since a peaceful uprising against the Assad regime two years ago turned into armed revolt after a violent government crackdown.<\/p>\n
Government forces, sometimes bolstered by fighters of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, have launched a major countrywide offensive to reclaim territory lost to rebels, who operate in chaotic groups with ideologies ranging from secular to hardline Islamic extremists.<\/p>\n
Hardline Sunni Muslims from other countries have also joined the fighting, which has left more than 93,000 people dead.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Syrian troops have advanced into rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, occupying buildings after pummeling the area with artillery that drove out opposition fighters, an activist said Saturday.}} The push into Khaldiyeh district was the first significant gain for troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who have been waging an eight-day campaign to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8919"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8919"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}