Daily Stormer The Most Censored Publication in History
Jessica Elgot
The Huffington Post
July 29, 2013
It was the city known as the “capital of the revolution” by rebels fighting Syria’s President Assad, one of the first cities to join the uprisings against the government in 2011.
But now Khaldiya, a key district in Homs, has been recaptured by government forces after a series of assaults.
Startling images of Homs have shown the extreme devastation of the Syrian civil war, with buildings crumbled to dust and whole neighbourhoods where all the homes, cafes, stalls and businesses are gone.
There are no cars on the streets, no morning shoppers or mopeds gliding through the passageways, just roadblocks of rubble.
The city became the country’s rebel stronghold after thousands of people turned out to demonstrate against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, ripping posters down and burning pictures of the leader.
And it is strategically vital, on the route to the coast from Damascus.
Now Assad’s forces, backed by the military might of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are tightening their grip on the city, taking most of the Khalidiya neighbourhood, one of the few remaining districts there under control of rebel forces.
According to Sky News correspondent Tim Marshall, only the old town and a few streets remain under rebel control.
The complete fall of Homs would be a major coup for the government as the city straddles a key route linking Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, AFP reported.
