BEIRUT — Syrian warplanes and ground forces bombarded rebel-held neighborhoods in Homs on Saturday as part of the military's ongoing campaign against opposition fighters in the heart of the country's third largest city, activists said.
The army of President Bashar Assad has been on the offensive in recent weeks, reclaiming some of the territory it has lost to the rebels in the past year.
The military, building on its capture of the strategic town of Qusair near Homs on the Lebanese border at the beginning of this month, has overrun a number of villages nearby. It also has hammered the center of the city, a rebel stronghold since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes hit two districts in the center of the city. It said the army also fired mortar shells into the neighborhoods.
An activist from one of those neighborhoods, Khaldiya, said tanks were also involved in the bombardment, and that the military was trying to push into the area from all sides.