The battle for Homs

– Revolutionary Council leader

“But they found no Assad troops or vehicles to shoot at. The cowards did not dare to face us in a fair battle. They just bombed the civilian buildings from a distance.

“We were trying to provide blood bags and snipers were targeting us. Women and kids were crying. Doctors were dispirited. There was a catastrophe.”

The opposition leader went on to say that Assad’s opponents in Homs had become increasingly desperate after the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution condemning the violence in Syria.

“People want to announce jihad [“struggle”],” he said. He added that he worried that the political leadership on the ground would lose control of the armed men.

The Revolutionary Council later said it had documented the deaths of 105 civilians from the shelling. About 100 others were seriously wounded and 25 more missing or captured.

One opposition fighter was reported killed and five others wounded.

While the shelling focused on Khaldiyeh, there were also casualties reported by the opposition in the neighbourhoods of Qusur, Jurt Ashayah, Inshaat, Karm al-Zeiton and Bab Tadmur.

When some wounded and dead were taken to Jurt Ashayah, they were attacked by government forces in armoured vehicles, according to opposition members.

Some of the injured were reportedly captured, along with those trying to evacuate them.

‘Controlling most of Homs’

After the initial assault on Khaldiyeh, more areas of Homs were hit by government forces in the following days, and opposition leaders reported that soldiers were shooting from some checkpoints.

“They are afraid to move troops into the neighbourhoods,” one leader said, interpreting the indirect attacks as a sign of the regime’s weakness.

“We ordered our armed groups to remain silent for now,” he said. “We don’t want them to attack or engage with the army because we don’t have much ammunition.”

Homs has been under siege for months, and its opposition leaders fear they will run out of supplies within days. Internet, mobile phones and land lines are cut off in most of the city.

Hama’s Revolutionary Council offered the Homs Revolutionary Council help with food, medicine, arms and ammunition.

The two councils co-operate closely and the team from Hama, about 30km north of Homs, was waiting for an opening to provide help.

As shelling continued, the fighters expected an eventual ground assault. But despite the increased crackdown, leaders of the Homs Revolutionary Council insisted they had lost no ground.

“We control most of Homs,” one member of the council’s executive council said.

Members of the Alawite community in Homs, as well as security officials, claimed that Alawites had been killed by mortars originating from Sunni areas.

Since the uprising began in March 2011, tensions between different religious communities have been rising in the city, which is home to many members of the Alawite minority to which Assad himself belongs.

In the latest report of sectarian violence, some four families were said to have been stabbed to death on Wednesday in the Wadi Iran area – renamed Wadi Arab by the opposition, which accuses Syria’s ally, Iran, of assisting in Assad’s crackdown.

Worried about causing further sectarian strife, however, one leader of the Homs Revolutionary Council was reluctant to admit that many victims of the crackdown were Sunni Muslims, and had been killed by Alawites.

‘Crying and dancing’

Government troops tried to enter the Inshaat neighbourhood of Homs on Wednesday, in preparation for an attack on the adjacent opposition stronghold Bab Amr.

Security forces reached Inshaat’s Hikma hospital but the Revolutionary Council said one of its armed groups halted the attack, destroying two tanks and three military vehicles.

The council, which has a sophisticated documentation team, claimed that 559 people had been killed since the government offensive began, including 43 children and 16 women.

“Today is terrible as usual but we are used to dying every day and dancing every day,” one leader of the council said on Thursday.

“We go to the funeral at noon, cry for our martyrs, and then we go at night to the demonstration and dance for a few minutes of freedom.

“Homs will not surrender. They are bombing us from a distance, they don’t dare to enter the city. They think they will destroy our will and resistance.

“We are waiting for them and we will defeat them in our neighbourhoods. Finally they will enter the city. We are waiting for them.”