Syrian army recaptures embattled Homs district, bodies of women and children found

BEIRUT // Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar Al Assad have seized Baba Amr in the central city of Homs, a watchdog said today, two weeks after fighting for the flashpoint district erupted.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued the report a day after it said opposition activists had found the scorched corpses of 13 people, including five women and four children, in the village of Abel in the countryside near the city.

"Syrian regime forces have recaptured total control of the district of Baba Amr, after more than two weeks, after rebel fighters had infiltrated the area and seized several neighbourhoods," said the Britain-based group.

An activist from the district confirmed the report, saying: "The rebels have withdrawn from Baba Amr".

The rebel fighters had re-entered Baba Amr after the army launched an all-out assault aimed at crushing the insurgency in besieged insurgent enclaves.

This time last year, regime forces overran Baba Amr after a relentless month-long siege that left the neighbourhood in ruins and claimed hundreds of lives.

In recent days, "the army used warplanes, rockets and tank shells to bombard" Baba Amr, said the Observatory, adding residents who had fled their homes in the district returned to find them "uninhabitable".

On Monday night, the Observatory said at least 13 scorched bodies were found in the village of Abel, in the countryside near Homs.

The victims had been "slaughtered and burned", said the Observatory, adding that "activists blamed pro-regime militia for committing this massacre".

The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of activists on the ground, distributed on Tuesday amateur video showing a row of buildings reduced to piles of grey rubble in a neighbourhood of Homs City.

"This is total destruction ... residential buildings have been destroyed ... shops have been destroyed ... everything inside the buildings has been destroyed," an unidentified activist can be heard saying in the video.

"Homs is burning and no one cares."