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Violence continues to engulf Syria
03:46 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

The government blames the incident on a terror group

Activists say they think security forces committed sabotage

Homs has been an epicenter of the protest

More than 4,000 people have died since mid-March

CNN  — 

Thick black smoke and darting flames enveloped the turbulent Syrian region of Homs Thursday after what the government and activists say was an attack on an oil pipeline.

Amateur video said to be from the site of the strike shows smoke and the flames from the pipeline near the western city of Homs.

Homs and its province of the same name have become hotbeds of resistance to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. It has been wracked with violence during the nine-month-long government crackdown against peaceful protesters.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said “an armed terrorist group on Thursday committed an act of sabotage against a crude oil transfer line” located northwest of the Homs refinery.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said the pipeline carrying oil from the eastern part of the country to the city of Homs was bombed and set ablaze.

The group also said in a statement that 20 civilians died on Thursday, and claimed all casualties were the result of actions by the security forces. Thirteen people died the city of Homs, including one woman, and some of them died from injuries sustained on Wednesday, the group said. Seven civilians in Hama province died on Thursday after being shot by Syrian security forces, the group said.

Abu Ramy el Homsy, an opposition member from Homs, told CNN he disputes the government contention that a terror group committed sabotage on the oil line because the area is surrounded by security forces.

The video’s narrator and el Homsy said al-Assad’s forces shelled the pipeline in order to blame the citizenry for the sabotage. The al-Assad regime has consistently blamed terror groups for the violence in Syria.

CNN is unable to verify the reports because Syrian officials have restricted access to the country by reporters.

More than 4,000 people have died in Syria during the grass-roots uprising against the government.

Human Rights Watch says that Homs has become the “most restive” province in Syria since mid-March when the crackdown started.

“Homs is a microcosm of the Syrian government’s brutality,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report last month about Homs.

The report detailed the government forces’ “systematic nature of abuses against civilians” in Homs and said the activity indicates “that crimes against humanity have been committed.”

On Monday, at least 34 corpses turned up in the city and the killings stirred fears of sectarian violence. Homs is populated by Sunnis, who make up the majority of Syria’s people, and Alawites, a minority group with a strong presence in Syria’s government and military.

CNN’s Ivan Watson contributed to this report