A government rocket attack killed at least 12 people in a village in central Syria Wednesday, while rebels battled regime forces over two key military bases in the northwest where government troops broke an opposition siege last week, activists said, according to The Associated Press.
The fighting in both places ties into efforts by President Bashar Assad’s military to reverse rebel advances that have left vast stretches of northern Syria in the hands of opposition fighters. The government is also eager to shore up supply lines to its forces stretched thin by the 2-year-old fight against a relentless rebellion in a conflict that has killed more than 70,000.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets struck the village of Eastern Buwaydah outside of Homs, and said two children and three women were among those killed. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said rebels and government forces also engaged in heavy fighting nearby.
Eastern Buwaydah is located between Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, and the Lebanese border. The region is of strategic value to Assad’s regime because it links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria’s Alawites and also home to the country’s two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.
