Suicide attacks targeting two security centers in the regime-held central Syrian city of Homs killed at least 32 people and wounded 24 others, according to state media citing the city’s Gov. Talal Barazi.
Syria’s SANA news agency quoted Barazi on the number of casualties and the nature of the targets.
State-run Syrian TV cited its reporter on the ground as saying six suicide bombers carried out the attacks. Three of the attackers sneaked into the city’s Ghouta neighborhood and the other three into its Mahatta neighborhood while clashes were underway, the channel said.
The head of Homs’ military intelligence, Gen. Hassan Daaboul, was killed in one of the attacks, Syria’s Ikhbariya state news channel reported.
Heavily fortified
Al-Sham Liberation Committee, a Syrian umbrella organization that includes the jihadist group Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, claimed responsibility Saturday for the Homs attacks.
Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham was formerly known as Nusra Front before severing ties with al Qaeda and renaming itself in 2016.
According to the statement from Al-Sham Liberation Committee, five of the group’s fighters killed 40 Syrian regime officers including the head of Homs’ military security branch. It also claimed to have killed the head of the national security branch in Homs.
The security buildings targeted in the Ghouta and Mahatta neighborhoods of Homs are very well secured and fortified, according to a CNN staffer who knows the area.
Multiple attacks
There have been multiple high-casualty attacks in Syria in recent days, by ISIS and other jihadist groups. Some of these groups, like ISIS and JFS, are not part of the all-but-collapsed Syria ceasefire.
On Friday, a suicide car bombing near the northern town of al-Bab, close to Syria’s border with Turkey, also left dozens dead.
That attack coincided with confirmation from the Turkish military that ISIS had been driven from al-Bab, its last significant holdout between the northern countryside of Aleppo and Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital.
Held by ISIS since 2013, al-Bab was recaptured after more than two months of fighting.
