Assad militias are expelling Sunnis living in wealthy areas of Homs in order to control the neighborhoods.
"It is not sectarian cleansing this time, it's a cleanse of greed and self-interest," an opposition activist said.
Systematic arrests and intense shelling campaigns have already forced residents to leave the city. Now, the regime and its militias are trying to force out the newly displaced people who fled to the neighborhoods of al-Ghouta, by shelling houses and schools used as temporal accommodation, or by intense harassment via security forces and arrest raids.
Homs, 140 kilometers north of Damascus, lies at a strategic cross point linking the capital with army bases in coastal regions controlled by Assad's Alawite sect.
Translated and edited by the Syrian Observer
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