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In 1982, after President Hafez al-Assad’s forces leveled whole sections of Syria’s fourth-largest city, Hama, to suppress a revolt, the first foreign journalists allowed to view the rubble were shocked by the scale of the destruction.

Three decades later, as another President Assad struggles to defeat a much broader insurgency, reporters have again been left searching for words as images emerge of vast tracts of ruins where, until recently, the vibrant residential neighborhood of Khalidiya stood in the country’s third-largest city, Homs.

“almost complete destruction” BBC’s @ramiruhayem tells @BBCNewshour about #Syria govt capture Khalidiya #Homs ..what is left of it — lyse doucet (@bbclysedoucet) 28 Jul 13

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The extent of the damage brought to mind the words of a United States Army officer who told the Associated Press correspondent Peter Arnett, as they surveyed the ruined Vietnamese city of Ben Tre, pulverized by American bombardment in 1968: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

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As a colleague who visited Homs this month reported, at the center of Khalidiya is the silver-domed mosque of Khalid bin al-Waleed — named for an early Islamic warrior particularly revered by the Sunni Muslims who make up the backbone of the rebellion — which is now “pockmarked and perforated.”

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When Syrians first took to the streets in 2011, Homs was known as “the capital of the revolution.” Video posted online by Syrian activists throughout the spring and summer of that year showed protest after protest in the neighborhood around the mosque, as demonstrators chanted for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad and security forces struggled to contain them.

In video of the protests, the mosque’s distinctive silver domes, a point of pride and wonder before the uprising, were frequently visible in the background — particularly in one clip recorded in July 2011 after the security forces opened fire at the funeral of a demonstrator.

In the past two years, as the uprising devolved into an armed conflict and rebel-held Khalidiya came under heavy bombardment by government forces, activists trained their cameras on the mosque.

Over the weekend, as government forces closed in on the area, opposition activists continued to record shells landing around the familiar domes.

Just hours after a final video of government shelling in the area was recorded on Saturday by an opposition activist, a reporter for state television accompanied Syrian Army troops as they took control of the mosque.

The capture of the mosque was greeted as a major propaganda victory by supporters of the Syrian government, who gleefully shared images of government troops in and around the famous domes.

Image from the Khalid Ibn Al Walid Mosque in Khalidiya #Homs back in the hands of the #SAA //t.co/iLm63wAkO1 — G (@SyrianLionesss) 27 Jul 13

Filming among the ruins, a crew from the Iranian government’s Arabic-language news channel Al-Alam reported on Monday that government forces had taken control of all of Khalidiya.

In an English-language news bulletin broadcast Tuesday night, Syrian state television hailed the offensive and claimed that government forces were consolidating their gains in the city.