Twin bombings hit Syria's Homs after 'calm' in Aleppo

The two explosions occurred in a village in the central province of Homs, with the first blast a car bomb in the village of Mukharam al-Fawkani and the second a suicide attacker wearing an explosive belt.

The area, controlled by President Bashar al-Assad's regime, is located between the cities of Homs and Palmyra, which was recaptured by the Syrian army from the IS group last month.

The blasts come just days after the Islamic State group seized the nearby Shaer gas field – one of the biggest in Homs – in an attack that killed at least 16 regime troops.

The Syrian regime controls most of Homs, the country's largest province, except for certain areas held by rebels or IS.

The violence comes as the northern city of Aleppo has seen relative calm after weeks of shelling and air raids.

Nearly two weeks of renewed fighting in the battered metropolis had left more than 280 civilians dead.

"Aleppo is burning... and its civilians are being killed," Britain's UN ambassador Matthew Rycroft told the UN Security Council, urging the member states into action.

US officials announced that an agreement had been reached with Russia to extend Syria's latest fragile ceasefire to the deeply contested northern city.

The Syrian military said the truce, which began at 12:01am on Thursday (5pm Wednesday EDT) would last only 48 hours.

Last week, Washington and Moscow agreed to monitor a truce between Bashar al-Assad's loyalist forces and opposition in rebels in Latakia and Eastern Ghouta.

But the divided city of Aleppo, a major commercial centre in the north of the country, was excluded from their efforts and fierce fighting continued there.

Agencies contributed to this report