kaboom!in the central city of Homs, causing casualties.
The Syrian state-owned Al-Ikhbariya TV said the blast in the city's southern al-Nozah neighborhood was a suicide bomb. It reported casualties but did not give a number.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of informants inside Syria, said the car was booby-trapped.
It said seven people died, according to preliminary reports.
It was not immediately possible to reconcile the different accounts.
Activists said the al-Nozah district is populated largely by Alawites, members of the offshoot Shiite sect to which Syria's
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
belongs.
Government troops are on an offensive against rebels near Homs, seizing a strategic town south of the city this week.