Spooks infiltrating Syrian city are very small men (9)

I believe the answer is:

homuncles

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'very small men' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'spooks infiltrating syrian city' is the wordplay.
'spooks' becomes 'uncle' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'infiltrating' is an insertion indicator.
'syrian city' becomes 'Homs' (Homs is a city in Syria).
'uncle' going into 'homs' is 'HOMUNCLES'.

'are' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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