11/7/11 Syria Unleashes Assault to Take an Unbowed City (New York TImes)

Syria Unleashes Assault to Take an Unbowed City

By ANTHONY SHADID

Published: November 7, 2011

The Syrian government has started a cruel assault to retake Homs, which is "Unbowed City" and which is the third largest city in the country. The government faces defectors who have prevented the government from seizing the city. The right side is the map (from New York Times).

The specter of civil war

has long hung over Homs, the most tenacious and determined of cities opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, where the city’s Sunni Muslim majority has closed ranks behind the revolt. This month, parts of the city have become an urban battlefield, with activists saying government forces have killed 111 people in just five days, opposition groups warning of dire shortages forced by the siege and residents complaining of lawlessness by marauding soldiers and paramilitary fighters. (New York Times)

The article provides more details about the background of  the civil war:

In some ways, Homs is a microcosm of Syria, with a Sunni Muslim majority and minorities of Christians and Alawites, a heterodox Muslim sect from which Mr. Assad draws much of his top leadership. Unlike the countryside, where sectarian tension runs deeper, Homs managed to rely on established ties between communities.

But in the past months, those relationships have frayed. While residents say many Christians have tried to remain on the sidelines, tensions have deepened between Sunnis and Alawites, as the most severe challenge to four decades of the Assad family’s authoritarian grip on the nation continues to burn.