Syrian opposition fighters' withdrawal from Homs delayed

The planned withdrawal of opposition fighters from areas they have held in the Syrian city of Homs has been delayed by a day, activists said Saturday, though a cease-fire is still holding in the city once known as the center of the uprising against the government.

Opposition fighters in Homs – Syria’s third-largest city – had agreed Friday to surrender territory in exchange for safe passage to other opposition-held areas. Their pullout from the central city would be a significant, albeit symbolic, advance for President Bashar al-Assad ahead of his likely re-election in a June vote.

Local activists said it was not clear why Syrian forces did not allow the first phase of several hundred opposition fighters to leave the Old City area on Saturday.

The agreement came after a blockade by Assad's forces caused widespread hunger in rebel-held parts of the city, which have been relentlessly hit by government artillery and airstrikes.

One Homs-based activist said rebels were gathering wounded fighters so they could be taken out as a first priority, beginning on Sunday.

Syrian Red Crescent ambulances are expected to evacuate the injured from the Old City under the terms of the 48-hour deal, and opposition fighters will release an Iranian officer they are holding prisoner.

While the deal will leave the city effectively under the control of government forces, there are reports of opposition fighters living among residents in the densely populated al-Waer neighborhood.

Homs is known as the “capital of the revolution” because it is where street protests against Assad’s government began in 2011, during the early days of the Syrian uprising.

Activists inside the city told Al Jazeera they blamed the opposition fighters’ agreement to withdraw from Homs on a punishing siege and lack of international assistance.

"It is impossible to take the city back ... We were so weak. We were hungry. We couldn't even walk 100 meters. I used to weigh 160 pounds. Now I weigh 115," an unidentified activist from Homs told Al Jazeera.

Opposition-held areas have faced fierce bombardment since the government launched a campaign to take the city back in 2012.

Homs is strategically important to both sides of the conflict because it connects government strongholds along the western coast with the capital, Damascus.

"The regime is concentrating on retaking strategic territory, it is part of their plan to partition the country" said Khaled el-Khoja of the Syrian National Council, an opposition bloc in exile.

In February, a deal reached by the opposition and the Syrian government at peace talks in Geneva allowed many civilians to leave opposition-held parts of Homs. However, violence continued there and elsewhere in the country.

At least 13 people were killed on Saturday by mortar fire across government-held areas, including central Damascus, a monitoring group and state media said.

Damascus residents say the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim opposition fighters have stepped up mortar attacks on the government-held capital in recent weeks as government forces have tightened their grip on central parts of the country.

Syria's state news agency SANA blamed "terrorists" for the mortar attack in Damascus, saying it killed four people including a 16-year-old girl.

The agency reported that 12 other people were killed in mortar attacks that hit a hospital and a hotel in the northern city of Aleppo, which was a major commercial hub before the war and is now divided between opposition and government forces.

Al Jazeera and wire services