At least 14 killed in bomb blasts in Syria’s Homs: state media

About “335 people, including civilians” have started to leave Fuaa and Kafraya to return to regime-held areas, also via the two neighbouring countries, he said.

The blasts, one from a auto bomb and another from a suicide attack, struck the Zahra district in the middle of the city, said the Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of contacts on the ground.

Homs city, once dubbed “the capital of the revolution”, came under full government control earlier this month after a ceasefire deal with rebels.

Geneva was the site of two rounds of U.N.-brokered peace talks early past year between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and rebels who have been fighting to oust him since 2011.

Zabadani has been relatively quiet since September when the deal was reached.

Amid the ruins of bombed-out buildings, dozens of bearded fighters wearing military-style fatigues boarded large buses.

Local police said that 37 others were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Hay-Zahra neighborhood, followed up immediately by a vehicle explosion and a second blast in the same area.

The station broadcast scenes of chaos in the central city, as firetrucks tried to extinguish flaming cars and rescue workers carried bloodied victims. The Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack.

The residents of Al-Zahraa are mostly Alawites, the minority sect of Syria’s ruling clan.