"Thousands enter war-torn Syrian city rebels left behind" by Albert Aji and Diaa Hadid | Associated Press May 11, 2014
HOMS, Syria — Thousands of Syrians returned to war-battered parts of the central city of Homs on Saturday, many making plans to move back as opposition activists expressed bitterness about the rebels’ surrender of their strongholds to progovernment forces and vowed they will return.
The homecoming came as rival jihadi factions fought deadly battles to the east in an oil-rich region bordering Iraq, the latest clashes between groups trying to overthrow the central government in Damascus.
Residents from Homs’ smashed ancient quarters scavenged what they could from their homes, mostly clothes, dusty mattresses, and some burned gas canisters, carrying them away in plastic bags and trolleys.
‘‘My house was completely destroyed and burnt, but I found some photos,’’ said Sarmad Mousa, 49, a resident of the old Hamidiyeh district. ‘‘They will remain a memory for me of the beautiful days we had here.’’
Some accused rebels of looting and burning their homes. Smaller crowds made the journey Friday.
Other residents were already making plans to stay in their homes, sweeping them clear of rubble and broken glass.
‘‘God willing, we will sleep in our homes tonight, not tomorrow,’’ one man told Lebanese television station al-Mayadeen. ‘‘Even if the homes aren’t ready, we are going to help each other build our homes,’’ he said.
Hundreds of rebels surrendered their stronghold in Homs to government forces in exchange for their safe passage to the nearby northern countryside as part of a deal that began Wednesday.
About 2,000 rebels — and civilians living there — were badly weakened by the nearly two-year blockade and heavy bombing of the area.
The surrender deal is widely viewed as a victory for President Bashar Assad weeks ahead of a presidential election June 3 that he is expected to win, giving him a mandate to continue a violent crackdown on rebels in the Syrian civil war, which activists say has killed more than 150,000 people.
I get home, pick up a Globe, and find the $ame old propaganda.
Assad has two unknown competitors for the presidential elections, Maher al-Hajjar and Hassan al-Nouri, according to an announcement by Syria’s supreme constitutional court Saturday.
Assad won big, he's King of the Castle, so to speak.
More than 20 candidates had applied to run, but spokesman Majed Khadra said they did not obtain the necessary support — approval of their candidacy by at least one-third of Syrian lawmakers. His announcement came after six of the original presidential hopefuls appealed to the constitutional court to accept their candidacies.
In the east, Al Qaeda breakaway group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured the western sector of the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour after days of fighting with Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a reporter in eastern Syria.
CIA-Duh fighting CIA-Duh, yup.
The Observatory said the 10-day battle left at least 230 people dead and displaced more than 100,000.
Malba Ali, a Syrian journalist in the province of Hassakeh bordering Deir el-Zour confirmed the Islamic State advances, adding that ‘‘many are fleeing the region.’’ Ali is in contact with activists and residents in Deir el-Zour.
For rebels, the withdrawal from Homs was a bitter day, said an opposition activist who uses the name Thaer Khalidiya.
‘‘The fighters left to rest and get treatment, but they want to return to liberate Homs,’’ he said over Skype. ‘‘They want to go back.’’
Instead they went to Iraq!
Municipal workers began fixing power lines in the city while bulldozers cleared rubble from the street. The Syrian Red Crescent gave clean water, food, and candles to residents who wanted to return to their homes, Governor Talal Barazi said.
That's why Assad won big in the election; government drove out the foreign thugs and US assets at great cost, but is trying to clean up and aid as a precursor to rebuilding.
But danger still lurked in some areas. A man, woman, and child have been killed in three separate explosions in Homs after detonating rebel-planted mines left in their homes, Barazi said.
The "good guys" left that?
At least five military vehicles carrying soldiers searched the area for more explosives.
Some citizens rushed to the area of Bustan al-Diwan, gathering to pray around the grave of an elderly, beloved Dutch priest who was shot to death in April in a rebel-held part of Homs.
See: Respected Dutch priest in Syrian city is gunned down
Father Francis Van Der Lugt, 75, was a Jesuit, the same order as Pope Francis.
Thank God Francis is safe (for now).
His death underscored fears among many of Syria’s Christian and Muslim minorities for the fate of their communities as Islamic extremists gain influence among the rebels seeking to topple Assad.
I no longer believe the $elf-$erving Zionist media narrative regarding sectarianism by people who have lived together in relative peace for centuries -- and for some strange reason only start going berserk after USrael's intelligence agencies infiltrate.
--more--"
Yeah, Homs is looking real good.
"25 killed, 100 injured as 2 bombs explode on a busy Syrian street" by Albert Aji and Bassem Mroue | Associated Press April 10, 2014
DAMASCUS, Syria — Two car bombs exploded Wednesday in a government-held district of Syria’s battleground city of Homs, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 100, state media said.
You don't have to be Nostradamus to... well, you know.
The blasts hit a commercial street inhabited mostly by members of President Bashar Assad’s minority Alawite sect in the central city, where government forces have been imposing a heavy siege on rebel-controlled districts.
Oh, then Assad did it just like he gassed his won people, blah, blah, blah.
Syria’s uprising, which began with largely peaceful protests against Assad’s rule in March 2011, has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels against an Assad government that is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
There is that narrative again.
Homs, a city of about 1 million, has shown great sympathy for the opposition since the early days of the uprising. The city was once known as ‘‘the capital of the Syrian revolution’’ before government forces captured large parts of once rebel-held neighborhoods such as Baba Amr and Khaldiyeh.
Homs has fallen?
State news agency SANA said one car blew up near a sweets shop in a busy street and about half an hour later another car exploded about 100 yards away ‘‘in order to inflict the biggest numbers of casualties among citizens.’’
SANA said the wounded included its photographer in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, adding that the blasts went off in the Karm el-Loz neighborhood. It said the explosion that struck a busy street wounded 107 people.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blasts killed 21 people including children.
It added that the number ‘‘is expected to rise’’ because some of the wounded are in critical condition.
The Observatory said the dead might have included some pro-government gunmen.
I suppose that is as close to a claim of responsibility we will get.
The blasts in Homs came hours after Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah fighters captured the last major town in the Qalamoun region near the border with Lebanon after weeks of intense fighting.
A post on that is Bordering on Deletion.
Syrian TV and Lebanon’s Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar station said the town of Rankous fell earlier Wednesday, depriving the rebels of their last major base in the rugged area.
Also Wednesday, the UN refugee agency said it had delivered aid to a rebel-held area of the war-shattered northern city of Aleppo in a ‘‘rare and risky’’ operation carried out in cooperation with the Syrian Red Crescent.
UNHCR said in a statement that the operation took place following an agreement with the Syrian government and the opposition to observe a brief cease-fire that was respected by both sides.
Maybe you can aid me with a title for a post on that.
--more--"
"Syrian rebels evacuate city under truce that allows aid" by Loveday Morris | Washington Post May 08, 2014
BEIRUT — Syrian rebels began to evacuate their last footholds in the central city of Homs on Wednesday, departing under a deal loaded with poignancy for the opposition.
Hundreds of rebels boarded buses for the countryside north of the city after being allowed safe exit in a deal confirmed by both sides. Each fighter was allowed to carry a single weapon and a bag of belongings.
In return, rebels said, they agreed to allow aid into two progovernment towns they had besieged for more than a year and to hand over prisoners.
Rebel forces have been steadily squeezed into an ever-shrinking patch of land in the Old City of Homs.
The streets where some of the biggest protests against President Bashar Assad were once held have been pummeled by artillery and airstrikes. Meanwhile, residents and rebel fighters have faced near-starvation under a tight government siege....
Quite a contrast in coverage! Rebel siege way more benign despite the atrocities and massacres of the ISIS Al-CIA-Duhs!
In contrast to the rebels’ despondency, the governor of Homs province, Talal Barazi, told the progovernment al-Watan newspaper that ‘‘the situation is positive and calls for high spirits.’’
The truce will allow the Old City ‘‘to return to being a safe and stable area, free from weapons and armed men,’’ he said.
The deal to pacify a longtime opposition bastion adds wind to the sails of the government just weeks ahead of Syria’s presidential election, which the United States has dismissed as a ‘‘parody of democracy.’’ Assad is running for a third seven-year term.
They a fine one to talk!
The government has been slowly regaining its grip on central Syria. The evacuations Wednesday follow similar cease-fires in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, that resulted from what the opposition described as ‘‘starve or surrender’’ tactics by the government.
As rebels suffered the humiliating withdrawal in Homs, Ahmad al-Jarba, the leader of the main Syrian Opposition Coalition, pleaded for antiaircraft weapons during a visit to Washington, where he is expected to meet President Obama.
He got $27 million to start forming a government-in-waiting.
Rebel fighters, outgunned and running low on food, had been trying to negotiate a safe exit from Homs for months. However, the delicate talks were stymied by demands on both sides and faced vehement opposition from pro-government militias.
Means they are losing big time!
After talks broke down last month and the government stepped up its bombardment of the city, the opposition pleaded for a safe exit for the fighters.
Activists said Wednesday that even hard-line fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group affiliated with al Qaeda, agreed to the deal....
Although that deal covered only women, children, and the elderly, hundreds of men of fighting age also chose to hand themselves over, broken by the brutality of the siege.
Looks like a SURRENDER!
The majority of the 240,000 people who the United Nations estimates are living under siege are suffering at the hands of government blockades, but rebels also have used siege tactics.
Yeah, the rebels not as bad though!!!
Nobul and Zahra, two Shi'ite towns a few miles north of the city of Aleppo, have been cut off by rebels for more than a year.
But it has been a benign and loving siege.
--more--"
"Syrian rebels hit Aleppo in massive bombing of hotel" by Albert Aji and Zeina Karam | Associated Press May 09, 2014
HOMS, Syria — With a gigantic explosion, Syrian rebels on Thursday leveled a historic hotel being used as an army base in the northern city of Aleppo by detonating bombs in tunnels dug beneath it, activists and militants said.
The blast near Aleppo’s medieval citadel, an imposing city landmark that was once swarming with tourists, killed an unknown number of soldiers. And it turned the Carlton Hotel, known for its elegant architecture and proximity to the citadel, into a pile of rubble.
Message received: don't stay overnight at Homs.
The attack was a powerful statement that the rebels could still deal heavy blows elsewhere in Syria even as they withdraw from Homs, the nation’s third-largest city, which they have surrendered to President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Yeah, let us all cheer what is TERRORISM!
Those government forces, meanwhile, were poised Thursday to enter Homs’s old quarters when the rebels’ evacuation is complete. The evacuation was suspended Thursday after gunmen in northern Syria prevented trucks carrying aid from entering two villages besieged by rebels. The aid delivery was part of a cease-fire agreement that allowed rebels to leave Homs for rebel-held areas farther north.
Gotta love those U.S-backed, Al-CIA-Duh rebels.
Earlier, footage from Homs broadcast by the pro-Syrian Al-Manar TV showed rebels, many of them covering their faces with masks and carrying backpacks, boarding a green bus, its windows covered with newspapers.
An Associated Press journalist who visited Homs on Thursday reported massive destruction, the streets surrounding the city’s main square appearing almost apocalyptic. Even the trees were burnt.
Buildings along Dablan Street were completely shattered with gaping holes, crumbled facades, and flattened upper floors, testimony to what Homs has endured in more than two years of fighting. A cafe was scorched. Rubbish, glass, debris, fallen trees, and electricity poles blocked deserted roads that intersected with Dablan Street.
A police officer wearing a uniform with a picture of an eagle and the words ‘‘Syria’s Assad’’ patrolled a nearby street.
‘‘Words cannot describe what has happened here,’’ said Abdel Nasser Harfoush, a 58-year-old Homs resident who lost his business. He said he hoped the agreement will end the bloodshed and restore peace and stability to the city.
Which they had before the U.S. decided it wanted to follow through on the PNAC plan and overthrow Syria.
The rebels’ withdrawal is a major win for Assad. Militarily, it solidifies the government’s hold on a swath of territory in central Syria, linking the capital Damascus with government strongholds along the coast and giving a staging ground to advance against rebel territory farther north.
Politically, gains on the ground boost Assad’s hold on power as he seeks to add a further claim of legitimacy to the June 3 presidential elections, which Western powers and the opposition have dismissed as a sham.
They are ones to talk!
But Thursday’s massive explosion in Aleppo was a powerful reminder that rebels — although weakened in the country’s center and west — are still a potent force elsewhere, particularly in the north.
I didn't need the reminder.
*******************
In a live broadcast from the site of explosion, Syrian TV’s correspondent in Aleppo did not mention casualties but said the rebels blew up the building by tunneling underneath and planting explosives.
‘‘They use tunnels like rats, because they cannot face the Syrian Arab Army,’’ the correspondent said, adding that the explosion felt like an earthquake to those around Aleppo.
The Syrian government does not publicize its casualties in the civil war.
Aleppo has been carved up into opposition- and government-held areas since the rebels launched an offensive there in mid-2012, capturing territory along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
--more--"
"After rebels leave Homs, Syrians return to the destruction" by Albert Aji and Ryan Lucas | Associated Press May 10, 2014
HOMS, Syria — Hundreds of Syrians, some snapping photographs with their cell phones, wandered down paths carved out of rubble in the old quarters of Homs on Friday, getting their first glimpse of the horrendous destruction that two years of fighting inflicted on rebel-held parts of the city.
The scenes that greeted them were devastating: City blocks pounded into an apocalyptic vista of hollow facades of blown-out buildings. Dust everywhere. Streets strewn with reinforcing bar, shattered concrete bricks, toppled telephone poles, and the occasional charred, crumpled carcasses of cars.
I'm glad U.S. missiles and drone strikes are clean, aren't you?
For more than a year, President Bashar Assad’s troops blockaded these neighborhoods, pounding the rebel bastions with his artillery and air force.
Try living under that for decades like Palestinians.
Under a deal struck this week, the government assumed control of the old quarters, while in return some 2,000 rebel fighters were granted safe passage to opposition areas north of Homs.
The final piece of the agreement fell into place Friday afternoon as the last 300 or so rebels left Homs after an aid convoy was allowed into two progovernment villages in northern Syria besieged by the opposition. The aid delivery was part of the Homs agreement.
The withdrawal was a major victory for the government in a conflict that has killed more than 150,000 people since March 2011. The deal handed Assad control of the city once known as ‘‘the capital of the revolution,’’ as well as a geographic linchpin in central Syria from which to launch offensives on rebel-held territory in the north.
Even before the last rebels departed, government bulldozers were clearing paths through the heaviest rubble in Homs’ battle-scarred districts Friday. It marked the first time that government troops have entered these neighborhoods, the last rebel bastions in the city, in more than a year.
Talal Barazi, governor of Homs, said engineering units were combing Hamidiyeh and other parts of the old quarters in search of mines and other explosives. State TV said two soldiers were killed while dismantling a bomb.
The SANA state news agency reported that army troops discovered two field hospitals in the neighborhoods of Bab Houd and Qarabis, as well as a network of underground tunnels linking the districts to each other and to the countryside.
An Associated Press reporter on a military-led tour of Homs said soldiers and progovernment militiamen fanned out across the districts to provide security. In Hamadiyeh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood before the fighting caused residents to flee, people trickled back in to check on their properties.
Imad Nanaa, 52, returned to examine his home for the first time in almost three years. Miraculously, he found it almost intact, compared to other houses with shattered windows and crumbling walls.
Speaking nervously and hurriedly because he wanted to leave as quickly as possible, Nanaa said he was looking forward to coming back with his family as soon as the army allowed it.
‘‘This deal has saved us from more blood and destruction,’’ he said.
Later, hundreds of men, women, and children went through parts of the 8-mile-long old area, flashing victory signs and taking pictures. Some men in the first group dashed inside, passing burned-out cars and heavily damaged buildings.
The staggering scale of destruction in the area spoke to the ferocity of the fighting.
--more--"
Also see:
Syrian activists say evacuations from Homs delayed
Syria rebels, forces agree to cease-fire
Attacks in Assad strongholds leave at least 8 dead in Syria
"Syrian rebels evacuate city under truce that allows aid" by Loveday Morris | Washington Post May 08, 2014
BEIRUT — Syrian rebels began to evacuate their last footholds in the central city of Homs on Wednesday, departing under a deal loaded with poignancy for the opposition.
Hundreds of rebels boarded buses for the countryside north of the city after being allowed safe exit in a deal confirmed by both sides. Each fighter was allowed to carry a single weapon and a bag of belongings.
In return, rebels said, they agreed to allow aid into two progovernment towns they had besieged for more than a year and to hand over prisoners.
Rebel forces have been steadily squeezed into an ever-shrinking patch of land in the Old City of Homs.
The streets where some of the biggest protests against President Bashar Assad were once held have been pummeled by artillery and airstrikes. Meanwhile, residents and rebel fighters have faced near-starvation under a tight government siege....
Quite a contrast in coverage! Rebel siege way more benign despite the atrocities and massacres of the ISIS Al-CIA-Duhs!
In contrast to the rebels’ despondency, the governor of Homs province, Talal Barazi, told the progovernment al-Watan newspaper that ‘‘the situation is positive and calls for high spirits.’’
The truce will allow the Old City ‘‘to return to being a safe and stable area, free from weapons and armed men,’’ he said.
The deal to pacify a longtime opposition bastion adds wind to the sails of the government just weeks ahead of Syria’s presidential election, which the United States has dismissed as a ‘‘parody of democracy.’’ Assad is running for a third seven-year term.
They a fine one to talk!
The government has been slowly regaining its grip on central Syria. The evacuations Wednesday follow similar cease-fires in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, that resulted from what the opposition described as ‘‘starve or surrender’’ tactics by the government.
As rebels suffered the humiliating withdrawal in Homs, Ahmad al-Jarba, the leader of the main Syrian Opposition Coalition, pleaded for antiaircraft weapons during a visit to Washington, where he is expected to meet President Obama.
He got $27 million to start forming a government-in-waiting.
Rebel fighters, outgunned and running low on food, had been trying to negotiate a safe exit from Homs for months. However, the delicate talks were stymied by demands on both sides and faced vehement opposition from pro-government militias.
Means they are losing big time!
After talks broke down last month and the government stepped up its bombardment of the city, the opposition pleaded for a safe exit for the fighters.
Activists said Wednesday that even hard-line fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group affiliated with al Qaeda, agreed to the deal....
Although that deal covered only women, children, and the elderly, hundreds of men of fighting age also chose to hand themselves over, broken by the brutality of the siege.
Looks like a SURRENDER!
The majority of the 240,000 people who the United Nations estimates are living under siege are suffering at the hands of government blockades, but rebels also have used siege tactics.
Yeah, the rebels not as bad though!!!
Nobul and Zahra, two Shi'ite towns a few miles north of the city of Aleppo, have been cut off by rebels for more than a year.
But it has been a benign and loving siege.
--more--"
"Syrian rebels hit Aleppo in massive bombing of hotel" by Albert Aji and Zeina Karam | Associated Press May 09, 2014
HOMS, Syria — With a gigantic explosion, Syrian rebels on Thursday leveled a historic hotel being used as an army base in the northern city of Aleppo by detonating bombs in tunnels dug beneath it, activists and militants said.
The blast near Aleppo’s medieval citadel, an imposing city landmark that was once swarming with tourists, killed an unknown number of soldiers. And it turned the Carlton Hotel, known for its elegant architecture and proximity to the citadel, into a pile of rubble.
Message received: don't stay overnight at Homs.
The attack was a powerful statement that the rebels could still deal heavy blows elsewhere in Syria even as they withdraw from Homs, the nation’s third-largest city, which they have surrendered to President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Yeah, let us all cheer what is TERRORISM!
Those government forces, meanwhile, were poised Thursday to enter Homs’s old quarters when the rebels’ evacuation is complete. The evacuation was suspended Thursday after gunmen in northern Syria prevented trucks carrying aid from entering two villages besieged by rebels. The aid delivery was part of a cease-fire agreement that allowed rebels to leave Homs for rebel-held areas farther north.
Gotta love those U.S-backed, Al-CIA-Duh rebels.
Earlier, footage from Homs broadcast by the pro-Syrian Al-Manar TV showed rebels, many of them covering their faces with masks and carrying backpacks, boarding a green bus, its windows covered with newspapers.
An Associated Press journalist who visited Homs on Thursday reported massive destruction, the streets surrounding the city’s main square appearing almost apocalyptic. Even the trees were burnt.
Buildings along Dablan Street were completely shattered with gaping holes, crumbled facades, and flattened upper floors, testimony to what Homs has endured in more than two years of fighting. A cafe was scorched. Rubbish, glass, debris, fallen trees, and electricity poles blocked deserted roads that intersected with Dablan Street.
A police officer wearing a uniform with a picture of an eagle and the words ‘‘Syria’s Assad’’ patrolled a nearby street.
‘‘Words cannot describe what has happened here,’’ said Abdel Nasser Harfoush, a 58-year-old Homs resident who lost his business. He said he hoped the agreement will end the bloodshed and restore peace and stability to the city.
Which they had before the U.S. decided it wanted to follow through on the PNAC plan and overthrow Syria.
The rebels’ withdrawal is a major win for Assad. Militarily, it solidifies the government’s hold on a swath of territory in central Syria, linking the capital Damascus with government strongholds along the coast and giving a staging ground to advance against rebel territory farther north.
Politically, gains on the ground boost Assad’s hold on power as he seeks to add a further claim of legitimacy to the June 3 presidential elections, which Western powers and the opposition have dismissed as a sham.
They are ones to talk!
But Thursday’s massive explosion in Aleppo was a powerful reminder that rebels — although weakened in the country’s center and west — are still a potent force elsewhere, particularly in the north.
I didn't need the reminder.
*******************
In a live broadcast from the site of explosion, Syrian TV’s correspondent in Aleppo did not mention casualties but said the rebels blew up the building by tunneling underneath and planting explosives.
‘‘They use tunnels like rats, because they cannot face the Syrian Arab Army,’’ the correspondent said, adding that the explosion felt like an earthquake to those around Aleppo.
The Syrian government does not publicize its casualties in the civil war.
Aleppo has been carved up into opposition- and government-held areas since the rebels launched an offensive there in mid-2012, capturing territory along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
--more--"
"After rebels leave Homs, Syrians return to the destruction" by Albert Aji and Ryan Lucas | Associated Press May 10, 2014
HOMS, Syria — Hundreds of Syrians, some snapping photographs with their cell phones, wandered down paths carved out of rubble in the old quarters of Homs on Friday, getting their first glimpse of the horrendous destruction that two years of fighting inflicted on rebel-held parts of the city.
The scenes that greeted them were devastating: City blocks pounded into an apocalyptic vista of hollow facades of blown-out buildings. Dust everywhere. Streets strewn with reinforcing bar, shattered concrete bricks, toppled telephone poles, and the occasional charred, crumpled carcasses of cars.
I'm glad U.S. missiles and drone strikes are clean, aren't you?
For more than a year, President Bashar Assad’s troops blockaded these neighborhoods, pounding the rebel bastions with his artillery and air force.
Try living under that for decades like Palestinians.
Under a deal struck this week, the government assumed control of the old quarters, while in return some 2,000 rebel fighters were granted safe passage to opposition areas north of Homs.
The final piece of the agreement fell into place Friday afternoon as the last 300 or so rebels left Homs after an aid convoy was allowed into two progovernment villages in northern Syria besieged by the opposition. The aid delivery was part of the Homs agreement.
The withdrawal was a major victory for the government in a conflict that has killed more than 150,000 people since March 2011. The deal handed Assad control of the city once known as ‘‘the capital of the revolution,’’ as well as a geographic linchpin in central Syria from which to launch offensives on rebel-held territory in the north.
Even before the last rebels departed, government bulldozers were clearing paths through the heaviest rubble in Homs’ battle-scarred districts Friday. It marked the first time that government troops have entered these neighborhoods, the last rebel bastions in the city, in more than a year.
Talal Barazi, governor of Homs, said engineering units were combing Hamidiyeh and other parts of the old quarters in search of mines and other explosives. State TV said two soldiers were killed while dismantling a bomb.
The SANA state news agency reported that army troops discovered two field hospitals in the neighborhoods of Bab Houd and Qarabis, as well as a network of underground tunnels linking the districts to each other and to the countryside.
An Associated Press reporter on a military-led tour of Homs said soldiers and progovernment militiamen fanned out across the districts to provide security. In Hamadiyeh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood before the fighting caused residents to flee, people trickled back in to check on their properties.
Imad Nanaa, 52, returned to examine his home for the first time in almost three years. Miraculously, he found it almost intact, compared to other houses with shattered windows and crumbling walls.
Speaking nervously and hurriedly because he wanted to leave as quickly as possible, Nanaa said he was looking forward to coming back with his family as soon as the army allowed it.
‘‘This deal has saved us from more blood and destruction,’’ he said.
Later, hundreds of men, women, and children went through parts of the 8-mile-long old area, flashing victory signs and taking pictures. Some men in the first group dashed inside, passing burned-out cars and heavily damaged buildings.
The staggering scale of destruction in the area spoke to the ferocity of the fighting.
--more--"
Also see:
Syrian activists say evacuations from Homs delayed
Syria rebels, forces agree to cease-fire
Attacks in Assad strongholds leave at least 8 dead in Syria
