Syrian government troops pushed Thursday, may 2, into the central districts of the city of Homs in an effort to oust rebels from the country's third largest urban center, activists said, according to The Associated Press.
Homs, along with the capital of Damascus and Syria's largest city, Aleppo, has been a key battleground in the country's conflict, which is now in its third year and which has claimed more than 70,000 lives.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops loyal to President Bashar Assad regained control of the Wadi Sayeh district in the center of Homs by early Thursday morning.
The neighborhood is strategically important for the government as its forces try to dislodge opposition fighters from several of Homs' central districts that have been under rebel control for more than a year. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the latest fighting.
In recent weeks, government forces have been on a counter offensive to reverse rebel gains in and around Aleppo, where the opposition controls whole neighborhoods and large swaths of land around the city.
The army has also conducted massive sweeps through opposition strongholds around Damascus to oust rebels from their enclaves, from where they are increasingly threatening the capital, the seat of Assad power.
Syria's state-run SANA news agency said three people were wounded in a mortar attack on the northern Damascus district of Abbasid on Thursday. The district is located near the neighborhood of Jobar, from where rebels have been trying to push into the capital in the past weeks.
In another part of Damascus, a bomb attached to a car detonated, wounding one man and causing material damage, SANA said.
