Thursday, May 08 – Syrian state television reports `huge explosion’ levels hotel in northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest and the provincial capital.

A local activist group called the Sham News Network also reported the blast Thursday in Aleppo, saying that government troops were based in the hotel. The television report identified the hotel as the Charlton hotel.

In Syria, Civil War is happening from March 2011, and Chemical weapons were used in Syria on more than one occasion, triggering strong international reactions.

In the city of Aleppo, government forces have been relentlessly shelling opposition districts with aircraft and artillery in recent months.

Aleppo has been divided between government and opposition-held areas since rebels launched an offensive there in mid-2012, capturing whole neighborhoods and large sections of territory outside the city and along the border with Turkey.

The rebels have been striking back, firing mortars and makeshift rockets into cities and towns under control of Assad’s forces.

Recently, hundreds of rebels have been evacuated from their last stronghold in the central Syrian city of Homs. Two convoys of buses have left the Old City under a deal brokered by Iran and facilitated by the UN. The withdrawal is part of a deal that will also see rebels release dozens of captives and ease two sieges. It marks the end of three years of resistance in the central city, once dubbed the “capital of the revolution” against Syria President Bashar al-Assad.