Five Syrian schoolchildren among 7 killed in Homs: Agency

Damascus: A car bombing today in the central Syrian province of Homs killed seven people, five of them schoolchildren, reports said. "Terrorists blew up a car bomb near the primary school in the town of Omm al-Amd in the countryside outside Homs, killing five schoolchildren and two workers," the official SANA news agency reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground, confirmed the blast and said it killed five people and wounded others. The watchdog said that Omm al-Amd is home to a Shiite community close to the Alawite sect of President Bashar al-Assad, unlike the majority Sunni Muslim rebels fighting to topple him.