Eight members of Syria's military
intelligence were killed by an Islamist militant car bomb on Thursday night
near the southern frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, opposition
activists and a violence monitoring group said on Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said the bomb was planted by Al-Nusra Front, a rebel unit fighting to oust
President Bashar al-Assad that the United States has labeled a terrorist group.
Rami Abdelrahman, head of the
Britain-based Observatory said that death toll was likely to rise as several
security personnel were in a critical condition.
On the other hand, the Syrian
army has stepped up an offensive on opposition Sunni Muslim strongholds in the
central city of Homs, bringing in ground forces to try to secure passage for
its forces through a major road junction, opposition sources said on Friday.
Around 15,000 Sunni civilians were trapped
on the southern and western edge of the city on Friday near the intersection of
Syria's main north-south and east-west arteries, crucial to let Assad's forces
travel between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, opposition campaigners in
Homs said.
They said army rocket, artillery and aerial
bombardment had killed at last 120 civilians and 30 opposition fighters since
Sunday.
Syrian authorities have banned most
independent media, making it difficult to verify such reports on the ground.
The sources also said Shabbiha
militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had killed more than 100 Sunni
men, women and children when they overran a nearby area 10 days ago.
However, Syria's government is
calling on hundreds of thousands of citizens who fled the country during the
civil war to come home, including opponents of President Bashar Assad.
The state-run SANA news agency said
that the government will help citizens return, whether they left "legally
or illegally." Syrian opposition figures who want to take part in
reconciliation talks will also be allowed back, SANA reported late Thursday.
The talks are part of Assad's
initiative to end the conflict, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives. The
opposition has rejected the initiative, insisting Assad must step down.
On the field:
Approximately 6,400 Syrian refugees’ arrived
to the Zeiatari camp in Jordan, according to the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR),
Melissa Fleming.
Fleming said that around 4,400 refugees entered Jordan
on Thursday with 2000 entering today.
An estimated 30,000 asylum seekers left Syria
in the past three weeks, Fleming added.
AP/REUTERS