Syrian army captures last insurgent area near Damascus

BEIRUT: The Syrian army has restored control over all areas surrounding the capital Damascus for the first time since early in the seven-year-old war, after pushing Islamic State militants out of a south Damascus pocket, the military said.

Pro-Syrian government forces have been battling for weeks to recover al-Hajar al-Aswad district and the adjacent Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp from Islamic State since driving rebels from eastern Ghouta in April.

In a televised statement Syria’s army high command said al-Hajar al-Aswad and Yarmouk had been cleared of militants.

“Damascus and its surroundings and Damascus countryside and its villages are completely secure areas,” the statement said, adding that the army would continue to fight ‘terrorism’ across Syria.

With its complete capture of the environs of the capital, the government of President Bashar alAssad is now in by far its strongest position since the early days of the war, which has killed more than half a million people and driven more than half the population from its homes since 2011.

Anti-Assad rebels now mainly control just two large areas in the northwest and southwest near borders with Turkey and Jordan. Turkey and the United States also have presences in parts of Syria outside government control.

The ultra-hardline jihadist group Islamic State, which was driven from most of the Euphrates River valley last year, now controls only two besieged desert areas in eastern Syria. Another insurgent group that has pledged loyalty to it holds a small enclave in the southwest.

Islamic State also captured a third of neighbouring Iraq in 2014 but was largely defeated there last year.