REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIRUT - Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed dozens of opposition members who tried to break an army siege of the central city of Homs, state media and a monitoring group said.

SANA news agency quoted a military source as saying army units "confronted armed terrorist groups" trying to get into the Khaldiya neighborhood north of the besieged rebel area in the Old City in the heart of Homs this week.

Thirty-seven opposition members were killed by the army, SANA said, without giving a figure for losses among Assad's forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 45 opposition members were surrounded and killed as they left the old city on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the violence in Syria through a network of military and medical sources, said it had no information on government losses.

Assad's forces have surrounded opposition fighters for more than a year in Homs, a center of the uprising against Assad in 2011 which turned into an armed uprising and civil war after the Syrian leader's forces cracked down on protesters.

A planned peace talks in Switzerland aims at finding a political solution to almost three years of conflict, which the Observatory said had killed 130,000 people, and agreeing a transitional body to govern Syria.

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