Syrian rebels continue to fight in the streets of Homs and Rastan against Syrian army tanks 1702123

Defense News - Syria

Friday, February 17, 2012, 08:40 PM

Syrian rebels continue to fight in the streets of Homs and Rastan against Syrian army tanks.

As violence in Syria intensifies the conflict there is looking increasingly like a civil war. Among the latest videos to emerge from the country are images apparently showing rebels firing on government forces in Homs.

Syrian army tanks T-62 and BMP-1 enter the northwestern city of Idlib, Syria, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012.

Homs, a province in central Syria that stretches from the border with Lebanon in the west to the frontiers with Iraq and Jordan in the east, has been one of the key centers of the 11-month-old uprising against Assad. As the uprising has become more militarized in recent months with army defectors battling regime forces almost daily, the rebels have taken control of small parts of the province including neighborhoods in the city of Homs and the nearby town of Rastan.

The crackdown has also targeted Deraa, the city where the anti-government forces first erupted. Residents reported an unrelenting bombardment in the past two days.

Syrian activists said government forces attacked Daraa on Thursday, February 16, 2012, carrying out arrests and shooting randomly in the city seen as the birthplace of the uprising.

On Thursday, February 16, 2012, Syrian government army soldiers with armoured infantry fighting vehicle BMP-1 were on patrol in the street, at the mountain resort town of Zabadani, Syria, near the Lebanese border.