Thousands of civilians have fled Syria’s third-biggest city of Homs, with insurgents within striking distance as part of a lightning advance against the regime of president Bashar al-Assad.
The push into the towns of Rastan, Talbiseh and Al-Dar al-Kabirah – the latter a suburb of Homs – came a day after opposition gunmen captured the central city of Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest, after the Syrian army said it withdrew. They had already taken control of Aleppo.
