2012 Homs offensive

2012 Homs offensive
	Part of the Siege of Homs and the Early insurgency phase of the Syrian Civil War
	; Neighbourhoods in Homs under artillery bombardment (8 February 2012).
Date	3 February – 14 April 2012; (2 months, 1 week and 4 days)
Location	Homs, Syria34°43′51″N 36°42′34″E
Result	Syrian Army victory By March 2012, the Syrian security forces retake control of half a dozen districts, leaving them in control of 70 percent of the city;
Belligerents
Syrian National Council Free Syrian Army; Opposition protesters;	Syrian Arab Republic Syrian Army; Security agencies; Shabeeha; Supported by:; Iran
Commanders and leaders
Lt. Abdul Razzaq Tlass; Col. Ahmed Jumrek †	Gen. Fo’ad Hamoudeh ; Gen. Ghassan Afif ; Gen. Mohamed Maaruf
Units involved
Farouq Brigades; Khalid ibn al-Walid Brigade	4th Division 154th Army Regiment; 1st Division 46th Armoured Brigade; 42nd Mechanised Brigade;
Strength
1,000 fighters	7,000 soldiers
Casualties and losses
140–200 FSA fighters killed; (opposition claim); Tens of killed and 40 captured; (government claim)	38 soldiers killed; 19 captured
	700–1,000 civilians and rebels killed overall (per H.R.W. and the opposition, see Deaths below for other estimates)
	Note: Numbers of dead are only for the period up to the fall of the Baba Amr district

The 2012 Homs offensive was a Syrian Army offensive on the armed rebellion stronghold of Homs, within the scope of the Siege of Homs, beginning in early February 2012 and ending with the U.N. brokered cease fire on 14 April 2012.

The offensive began by artillery bombardment by the Syrian armed forces in response to an attack by the Free Syrian Army on Syrian Army checkpoints on 3 February 2012, killing 10 soldiers. Government forces then began to bombard the city using tanks, helicopters, and artillery, rockets and mortars. The Syrian government has denied that the bombardment is indiscriminate and blamed "armed groups" for the civilian deaths, including the deaths of foreign journalists.

Heavy shelling continued on 29 February, as the Syrian armed forces launched a ground operation to restore control of the Baba Amr neighbourhood. The Syrian government announced that the army was being sent into the area and were "cleaning" it from rebel fighters, and that the operation would be over in a matter of hours. At this stage, water supplies, electricity and communications were entirely cut off in the Baba Amr district according to opposition activists. Heavy clashes continued throughout the day, as the Syrian Army's 4th Armoured Division sent in tanks and infantry. Baba Amr was finally secured by the Syrian army on the morning of 1 March, as rebel forces claimed they had made a "tactical retreat" from the area, after running low on weapons and ammunition.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.