FILE - In this April 14, 2016 file photo, a Syrian man carries a carpet through a devastated part of the town of Palmyra as families load their belongings onto buses in the central Homs province in Syria. Syrian media says a pair of attacks on two security locations in the central Syrian city of Homs killed at least 30 people. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - In this April 14, 2016 file photo, a Syrian man carries a carpet through a devastated part of the town of Palmyra as families load their belongings onto buses in the central Homs province in Syria. Syrian media says a pair of attacks on two security locations in the central Syrian city of Homs killed at least 30 people. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File) Credit: Hassan Ammar

Beirut — In synchronized attacks Saturday, insurgents stormed into heavily guarded security offices in Syria’s central Homs city, clashed with troops and then blew themselves up, killing a senior officer and at least 31 others, state media and officials reported.

The swift, high-profile attacks against the Military Intelligence and State Security offices, among Syria’s most powerful, were claimed by an al-Qaida-linked insurgent coalition known as the Levant Liberation Committee. A Syrian lawmaker on a state-affiliated TV station called it a “heavy blow” to Syria’s security apparatuses.

The attacks came as Syrian government and opposition delegates meet in Geneva in U.N.-mediated talks aimed at building momentum toward peace despite low expectations of a breakthrough. The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura called the attacks “tragic.”

“Every time we had talks or a negotiation, there was always someone who was trying to spoil it. We were expecting that,” he said.

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar al-Ja’afari, who leads Damascus’ delegation to Geneva, said the attacks were a message from the “sponsors of terrorism” to the peace talks. Al-Ja’afari said the attacks will not go unanswered.

The government responded with an intense airstrike campaign against the only neighborhood on the city’s outskirts still under opposition control and other parts of rural Homs.

The government regained control of the city of Homs — one of the first to rise against President Bashar Assad — in 2015. But al-Waer neighborhood remained in rebel hands. Settlement negotiations to evacuate it have repeatedly faltered.

The attack early Saturday was the most high-profile in a city that has been the scene of repeated suicide attacks since the government regained control. The head of Military Intelligence services Maj. Gen Hassan Daeboul, who was killed in Saturday’s attack, had been transferred from the capital to Homs last year to address security failures in the city, according to local media reports at the time.

Details emerging of the Saturday attacks reveal coordinated attacks that used a combination of armed assault and suicide attacks to breach the security offices.

The governor of Homs Province, Talal Barzani, told The Associated Press three blasts in total killed more than 32 people. He said the attackers were wearing suicide belts, which they detonated in the security offices. The two agencies are two kilometers (1.2 miles) apart, and according to activists from the city they are heavily guarded, and monitored with security cameras.

According to state-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV, at least six assailants attacked the two security compounds in Homs’ adjacent al-Ghouta and al-Mahata neighborhoods, clashing with security officers before at least two of them detonated explosive vests. It was not clear if there are any civilians among the casualties.

The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdurrahman said the synchronized attacks killed at least 42 security officers and personnel.