BEIRUT: Syrian warplanes and ground forces bombarded fighter-held neighborhoods in Homs yesterday as part of the military’s ongoing campaign against opposition fighters in the heart of the country’s third largest city, activists said.

The army of Bashar Assad has reclaimed some of the territory it has lost to the fighters in the past year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes hit two districts in the center of the city, a stronghold of the fighters, since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011. It said the army also fired mortar shells into the neighborhoods.

An activist from one of those neighborhoods, Khaldiya, said tanks were also involved in the bombardment, and that the military was trying to push into the area from all sides.

Shelling has been continuous since 10 a.m. in that area and in nearby Old Homs, activist Tariq Bardakhan told The Associated Press via Skype.

“Today is one of the most violent days that Homs has witnessed since the beginning of the revolution,” he said.

In an activists’ video of the bombardment, several large explosions can be heard as plumes of grey smoke rise from buildings in a densely built-up area of the city.

The narrator of the video says: “These are heavy explosions that hit Homs, God is great.” Another shell lands and smoke can be seen rising from behind a mosque. Two minarets are seen in the distance and the narrator says they belong to the historic Khalid Ibn Al-Walid Mosque in Khaldiya.