Homs, forced displacement by Assad militias to control rich suburbs

''It's not a sectarian cleanse this time, it's a cleanse of interests and greed.'' Activist said to Eqtsad, newspaper affiliated to Zaman Alwasl.

The systematic arrests and intense shelling had forced the original residents to leave the city. Now the regime and its militia are trying to force the newly displaced people who came to live in al-Ghouta neighborhood, by shelling houses and schools where people use the as temporal accommodation or by harassing intensive security procedure and arrest raids.

Homs, 140 km (90 miles) north of Damascus, lies at a strategic crossing linking the capital with army bases in coastal regions controlled by Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated majority Sunni Syria since the 1960s.

 More than 93,000 people have been killed since the Syria crisis started in March 2011, according to the United Nations, as largely peaceful protests against Assad's rule. It escalated into a civil war after opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown on dissent.