Homs

Much of the worst violence took place in the city of Homs, with film of it posted on a social media website.

On April 18th thousands of demonstrators sat down in Homs's main square, which they renamed Tahrir (Liberation) Square, after the Cairo one.

"We were able to move a bit more freely, " said Maria Haddad, an activist in Homs reached via Skype.

Protesters said the dead included an 80-year-old man shot near Homs as well as a young boy near Deraa, in the south.

I entered Homs on a smugglers' route, which I promised not to reveal, climbing over walls in the dark and slipping into muddy trenches.

Protests have taken place in several other Syrian towns, including Homs, Banias, Deir ez-Zor and even, in a small way, Damascus itself.

When protesters a few weeks ago strode through a Christian district near the centre of Homs, residents gave them water.

Although dissent simmers just below the surface, the ghastly scenes in Homs seen on television seem far away and almost unreal.

Witnesses reported heavy government shelling in the city of Homs Friday. Parts of Homs have come under government shelling for weeks.

It's unclear how Harmoush, a native of the pummeled yet fiercely resistant Syrian city of Homs, ended up in regime custody.

Samira did, taking her children and what cash she had in the house to her in-laws, ' in a different Homs neighborhood.

Other military operations are reported in towns near Damascus and Homs and a village near the Lebanese border.

Syrian activists say a large number of tanks have been deployed in the town of Deir al-Zour and around the city of Homs.

The journey across the countryside from the Lebanese border to Homs would be idyllic in better times.

In the nearby city of Homs, thousands attended the funeral of a protester killed in a previous demonstration.

Opposition activists in Syria say thousands of anti-government protesters have occupied the centre of the country's third largest city Homs.

At least two people were reported killed in the suburbs, more in Homs - the country's third biggest city.

There have been heavy casualties in a Syrian army attack against the city of Homs. More than 50 people have been documented as killed.

Within minutes of Mr Assad finishing his speech, protesters were out in the streets of Homs, the country's third biggest city.

One activist, who will be referred to as Ammar, said that every Thursday he travels to Homs to protest.

"We were all one before this, " says a teacher in Homs.

IN HOMS they are burying their dead under cover of darkness, for fear that the mourners themselves will become the next victims.

The rebellion in Homs, Syria's third city and the biggest to be hit by sustained unrest, is the most significant challenge to Mr Assad.

In shops in Homs, some profess to prefer stability to reform, anxiously pointing to Iraq and Lebanon as examples of what can go wrong.

Leaving Homs on a quiet day, we spot tanks rumbling down the highway and rattling trucks of soldiers on the move.

On May 20th and 21st at least 21 civilians in Homs were said to have been killed.

Homs and Hama (see article), Syria's third and fourth cities, are almost out of Mr Assad's control.

Other activists echoed the sense of fear that envelops Homs.

But on Fridays Homs feels like a city under siege. Yellow plastic signs, rocks and dustbins are set up as roadblocks.

There were funerals on Monday in Homs for some of the eight people killed in violence there on Sunday.

Video footage put on the Internet by opposition activists shows thousands of people sitting on the ground in the main square of Homs.

Syria's state-run news agency says a nuclear engineer has been assassinated in a hail of bullets in the restive central city of Homs.

Homs and Hama, Syria's third and fourth cities, are almost out of Mr Assad's control.

After the latest killings in Homs, several prominent Alawites circulated statements condemning the damage done to Sunni shops.

They say another was killed in the city of Homs as demonstrators once again demanded President Assad's resignation.

The protesters and the security forces in Homs are locked in a protracted and violent battle of wills.

The witnesses said several hundred people converged on the main square in the central city of Homs Monday after a U.

The chief of chest surgery at the Homs hospital who had treated wounded Syrian protesters in the past months was also recently assassinated.

Thousands protested in the main square in Homs declaring that there will be "no fear after today. "

IN TAHRIR SQUARE and Homs, Egyptians and Syrians have risked their lives to demand basic democratic freedoms.

One of them said that more than 300 people in Homs alone have died since the protests broke out; the national figure now exceeds 1, 000.

The regime had tried to break Homs for months.

Human rights activists said three people were killed during demonstrations in the central city of Homs.

THE residents of Homs are traditionally the butt of many Syrian jokes.

Unrest was also reported in the central city of Homs and the north of the country.

When I was in Homs three months ago, I sat with Samira in her living room.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were protests in Homs and Qamishli, in the north.

In Homs, the country's third city, businesses have started paying protesters' expenses.

People in neighbourhoods of Homs have taken to shouting "Allahu akbar! " ( "God is great! " ) in unison from balconies at night.

A third shows a teenage boy being shot and carried away from a protest in Homs.

So a drive to Homs is a bone-rattling struggle down dirt roads, criss-crossing fields.

The protests in Homs got going immediately after his second speech.

According to Mahmoud, the army units surrounding Homs are also using a sinister new strategy.

GET PAST the leather-clad man at checkpoint when you enter Homs and you heave a sigh of relief.

THE city of Homs, the third-biggest in Syria, is close to civil war.

In the restive port city of Latakia and in Homs, Syria's third-biggest city, gunfire has been ringing out.

In Homs, Syria's third city, sectarian strife has taken an ugly turn.

Nineteen were shot dead in Syria on Friday, several in Homs and Deir Ezzor, a tribal eastern area.

Elsewhere, scores of wounded were reported in the cities of Aleppo, Deraa, Idleb and Homs.

That is the sound of explosions from a video on YouTube. The video is said to show shells falling on the city of Homs.

A trip to Homs, an industrial city 100 miles north of Damascus, seemed worth the risk.

The rebels in Homs have guns, but they are no match for the army's tanks.

When the senior commander in Homs was asked how many men he had lost, he paused, sipped tea and replied, "A huge amount. "

But, instead, opposition activists have described how tanks have again been in action against opposition supporters in the city of Homs.

In cities such as Deraa and Homs, tactical withdrawals were followed by a heightened use of force.

On May 18th many of Homs's people observed a general strike.

It is said that only these who take the bull by the homs and courageously clim the summit are able to find such a rare fruit

In recent days, the Syrian government supporters and opponents clashed in the city of Homs, killing 50 people. englishtang. com

The residents of Homs, the country's third city, are traditionally the butt of jokes