Rebels capture major weapons depots east Homs

Syrian mainstream and Islamist rebels pressed an advance Wednesday against Bashar al-Assad troops in Homs province aimed at capturing major weapons depots, rebels and a monitoring group said.

Several brigades, among them the Al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front, seized control of army positions "near weapons depots, by Mahin village," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, according to AFP.

Zaman Alwasl reporter said about 10,000 people had fled Mahin and Hawarin towns to al-Qaryatain city, 90 km east Damascus because of fierce artillery shelling by the Assad army.

Local source said that many people have been killed and tens have been wounded with mass destruction in their buildings amid state of fear and telecommunication outage.

Qaryatain activists have plead for medical aid and urgent relief workers where no aid NGO's or relief equipment over there.

Rebels also seized a gas well located outside Sadad, a Christian town near Mahin, said the Observatory, as clashes pitted them against loyalists.

On Monday, opposition fighters entered Sadad, aiming to advance through it towards Mahin and the depots.

But the army pushed them back and deployed its own troops in Sadad, said the Observatory, which also reported five killed in Wednesday's clashes there, AFP said.

Activists say troops fighting there are backed by fighters from the Lebanon's Hizbullah.

Referring to Sadad, a rebel commander said "the regime is responsible for whatever happens to this historic town."

The rebels had entered the town without a fight, he said.

"The police station surrendered without resistance, and there were no clashes until the regime tried to retake the town by force. It used warplanes, artillery, tanks and all kinds of conventional weapons," said Lieutenant Colonel Oraba Idriss, who defected from the army to join the rebels.

Many of the town's residents have fled in the past hours, and as the rebels advanced, the loyalist air force launched an air campaign on the area.