On 1 December, FSA troops launched a raid on an intelligence building in Idlib, leading to a three-hour firefight in which eight loyalists were killed. This came the same day the United Nations announced it considered Syria to be in a state of civil war. On 3 December, clashes in the city of Idlib in the north of Syria the next day resulted in the death of seven Assad loyalist soldiers, five defectors and three civilians. On 4 December, heavy fighting raged in Homs during which at least five FSA insurgents were killed and one wounded. Defected soldiers killed four members of the security forces, including an officer, at the southern city of Deal in Daraa province on 5 December. On 7 December, there were clashes between the Syrian regular army and groups of army defectors near the radio broadcasting centre in the town of Saraqeb, in Idib district. An armoured personnel carrier (APC) of the regular army was destroyed during the clashes. Meanwhile, joint security and military forces raided the houses at the edges of Saraqeb and arrested three activists at dawn, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Between 1 and 7 December, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported the deaths of 48 members of the state security forces.