Bus bombing kills five in Syria's Homs: SANA

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A bomb blast hit a passenger bus in the government-held city of Homs at noon on Wednesday, killing five people and wounding six, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, also said that at least five people were killed in the attack. SANA's correspondent in Homs said the bombing, which it said was carried out by terrorists, targeted a small passenger bus which was in a street in al-Zahra neighborhood. The agency quoted the Homs health director as saying the bombing killed 5 people and wounded 6. Government-held cities have been hit by a series of bombings in recent weeks, including in Homs, where an attack that included blasts and shooting killed dozens of people in February including a senior security official. Scores of people were killed in suicide attacks in the capital Damascus earlier this month, including twin bombings on March 15 at a central courthouse and a restaurant, and a blast days earlier near an important Shi'ite Muslim shrine. After some of the attacks in recent weeks the jihadist rebel group Tahrir al-Sham, whose main component is al Qaeda's former Syrian branch Nusra Front, said it had been behind the blasts. Analysts have predicted that as jihadist rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad suffer military reverses, they will increasingly turn to guerrilla-style attacks in territory controlled by the government. (Reporting by Angus McDowall, Editing by Catherine Evans and Angus MacSwan)