Twin suicide attacks on bases in Syria’s Homs kill 14: monitor

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Militants attacked two Syrian security offices in the western city of Homs on Saturday with guns and suicide bombers, killing at least 42 people including a senior officer, a war monitor said.
The attackers killed the head of military security and 29 others at one of its headquarters in the city and 12 more people at a branch of state security in attacks that began early in the morning, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian state television reported that clashes had rocked the districts of Al-Ghouta and Al-Mohata, where the two targets were located, before three suicide bombers detonated their explosives at each place. It did not give a death toll.
It was not immediately clear if the militants were from Daesh or other groups, the Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said.
Security forces locked down the city center.
Homs has been under the full control of the government since May 2014 when rebels withdrew from the center under a UN-brokered truce deal.
But it has seen repeated bombings since then. Twin attacks killed 64 people early last year.
State television paid tribute to the “martyrs” in the latest bombings.