Blast in Homs city kills 8, wounds dozens

December 12, 2015 1:45 PM

Syrian state television described the attack as "two large terrorist explosions". News agency SANA published a photo of two men carrying a woman away from burning wreckage.

Syria"s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with the Iranian Khabar TV channel in this handout photograph released by Syria"s national news agency SANA on October 4, 2015.

Twin bomb blasts in a government-controlled neighbourhood of Syria's Homs city killed at least eight people and wounded dozens on Saturday, state media and a group monitoring the war said.

One of the bombs detonated close to a hospital in the mainly Alawite neighbourhood of al-Zahra in the east of Homs city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise.

Homs was a centre of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that started in 2011. The blasts come days after the implementation of a truce deal in Waer, another district of Homs situated on its northwestern outskirts.

Under that deal, agreed between the local government and insurgents under the auspices of the United Nations, a number of fighters and civilians left Waer, the last insurgent-held area of Homs and humanitarian aid was allowed in.

The agreement, which is still being implemented in stages, allowed the government to tighten its control of the western city.