Huge blast destroys Aleppo Hotel in Syria

Beirut - State media and activists report that a large explosion in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has destroyed a hotel and several other buildings.

Rebel fighters are believed to have detonated a bomb placed in a tunnel beneath the Carlton Citadel Hotel, near the city's medieval citadel and souk.

Opposition activists said that government troops were based there and that a number had been killed.

The state news agency, Sana, reported that "terrorists" had blown up tunnels they had dug underneath archaeological sites in the Old City.

The hotel had suffered "huge damage", but no casualties were mentioned.

The Observatory said that the remote detonation of a large quantity of explosives placed in the tunnel by the Islamic Front had destroyed the hotel and caused the collapse of several nearby buildings.

A number of security forces personnel and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were believed to have been killed, it added.

Meanwhile, hundreds more people are expected to be evacuated from their last remaining rebel stronghold in the heart of the city of Homs.

Almost 1000 rebel fighters and their relatives were driven in buses from the Old City to opposition-held territory north of Homs, yesterday.

The UN's Resident Co-ordinator in Syria, Yacoub El Hillo, told the BBC that the evacuation had paved the way for central Homs to be free from the fighting and expressed hope that civilians would be able to return. But he cautioned against them rushing back, warning that the formerly rebel-held areas were "inundated with unexploded ordnance", including land mines and booby traps.

The Old City was also "incredibly and comprehensively destroyed" and "uninhabitable", he added.