A foreign-backed militant holds an improvised mortar shell in the northern city of Aleppo. (file photo)<\/p>\n
At least six people have been killed in a rocket attack on an area outside Aleppo, hours after a car bomb killed eight people in the province of Homs in western Syria.\n<\/p>\n
The deaths occurred on Saturday when foreign-backed insurgents fired rockets into in the Aleppo countryside, leaving several others, including women and children, injured.\n<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, eight people, including three women and a teen, were killed in a car bomb blast al-Adawiya neighborhood in the provincial capital Homs.\n<\/p>\n
The incidents came as the Syrian Army makes progress in clearing flashpoint cities of militants.\n<\/p>\n
The troops took control of the last militant bastion near the strategic town of Qusayr, also in Homs province.\n<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Syrian state TV said the town, which lies near the border with Lebanon, was under full control of the Syrian Army following three weeks of fighting with militants.\n<\/p>\n
Syrian government forces also managed to retake control of several villages near Qusayr on Friday and pushed foreign-backed militants out of the central villages of Salhiyeh and Masoudiyeh, north of Qusayr.\n<\/p>\n
The Syrian Army has now turned its sights on the city of Homs.\n<\/p>\n
The Syria crisis began in mid-March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of security personnel, have been killed in the violence, and several international human rights organizations say the foreign-sponsored militants have committed war crimes.\n<\/p>\n
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.\n<\/p>\n
MRS\/AS
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