IS kills 30 Assad men; Homs blast injures 37

DAMASCUS: At least 37 people, including children, were injured in a car bomb attack on a government-controlled neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday, state television reported.
“Terrorists detonated a car bomb in the center of Al-Zahraa neighborhood, causing deaths and injuries,” it said. It later said at least 37 people had been hurt, including children who were “in serious condition,” adding that the blast had caused major damage.
The majority of Al-Zahraa’s residents are Alawite, the same sect as President Bashar Assad.
The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks targeting government-controlled areas of Homs city.
Meanwhile, Islamic State group men attacked an oil and gas field in Syria, killing at least 30 pro-regime gunmen and security guards, a monitoring group said Wednesday.
“IS managed to control parts of the field,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said after Tuesday’s assault at Shaer, in Homs province.
An unknown number of militants were also killed, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Separately, US warplanes renewed airstrikes near the Syrian town of Kobani, as Iraqi peshmerga soldiers prepared to reinforce their fellow Kurds in the border area, the US military said on Wednesday.
US fighter jets and bombers on Tuesday and Wednesday carried out eight air raids near Kobani, targeting six vehicles, a building and several IS fighting positions over the past 24 hours, said the military’s Central Command, which oversees the air war in Iraq and Syria.
In Iraq, American unmanned drones and fighter jets conducted six bombing raids, including three near Sinjar in the north and three around Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Central Command said in a statement.
The latest air strikes came as heavily armed peshmerga forces were poised to cross the Turkish border into Kobani to help the local Kurdish militia that has held out against a relentless assault by IS militants for weeks.
Free Syrian Army rebels crossed from Turkey to Kobani earlier on Wednesday.