Women carry items in plastic bags at the Karaj Al-Hajez crossing, the only passageway separating Aleppo’s Bustan al-Qasr, which is under the rebels’ control and Al-Masharqa neighbourhood, an area controlled by the regime, in Aleppo yesterday. Photo: ReutersWomen carry items in plastic bags at the Karaj Al-Hajez crossing, the only passageway separating Aleppo’s Bustan al-Qasr, which is under the rebels’ control and Al-Masharqa neighbourhood, an area controlled by the regime, in Aleppo yesterday. Photo: Reuters

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces pounded Sunni Muslim rebels in the city of Homs with artillery and from the air yesterday, the second day of an offensive to expand loyalist control over Syria’s strategic centre, activists said.

They said rebels defending the old centre of Homs and five adjacent Sunni districts had largely repelled a ground attack on Saturday by Assad’s forces but reported fresh clashes and deaths within the city yesterday.

The offensive follows steady military gains by Assad’s forces, backed by Lebanese Hizbollah militants, in villages in Homs province and towns close to the Lebanese border.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad must halt his “brutal assault” on Homs. Gulf countries, which back the rebels, urged Lebanon to stop “parties” interfering in the Syria conflict, a clear reference to the Iranian-backed Hizbollah forces.

Saudi Arabia has accelerated deliveries of sophisticated weaponary

Opposition sources and diplomats said the loyalist advance had tightened the siege of Homs and secured a main road link to Hizbollah strongholds in Lebanon and to army bases in Alawite-held territory near the Syrian coast, the main entry point for Russian arms that have given Assad a key advantage in firepower.

At least 100,000 people have been killed since the Syrian revolt against four decades of rule by Assad and his late father erupted in March 2011, making the uprising the bloodiest of the Arab Spring popular revolutions.

The Syrian conflict is increasingly pitting Assad’s Alawite minority, backed by Shi’ite Iran and its Hizbollah ally, against mainly Sunni rebel brigades supported by the Gulf states, Egypt, Turkey and others.

Sunni Jihadists, including al-Qaeda fighters from Iraq, have also entered the fray.

The loyalist advances have alarmed international supporters of the rebels, leading the US to announce it will step up military support. Saudi Arabia has accelerated deliveries of sophisticated weaponry, Gulf sources say.

The Sham News Network opposition monitoring group said fighters belonging to the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front had killed five loyalist troops in fighting in the Bab Hud district of Old Homs yesterday.

Activists said one woman and a child had been killed in an airstrike on the old city, home to hundreds of civilians.

Video footage taken by the activists, which could not be immediately verified, showed the two bodies being carried in blankets as well as a man holding a wounded child with a huge gash in his head.

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