Syria army regains 30km of south-west border with Jordan

The Syrian army and its allies yesterday seized control of at least 30 kilometres of Syria’s border with Jordan from rebels.

A military media unit run by Hizbollah, a close ally of the Syrian government, said the army and its allies had gained control over all checkpoints and posts on the frontier in Sweida, one of four Syrian provinces that border Jordan.

Rebel groups, some of them backed by western and Arab states, still control much of Syria’s south-west border with Jordan and Israel.

Sweida province was not included in a US-Russian brokered ceasefire that took effect in nearby areas of the southwest in July.

Said Saef, spokesman for the western-backed rebel group Martyr Ahmed Abdo brigade, said yesterday’s attack came from two sides in Sweida.

“Most of the eastern Sweida countryside is now in the hands of the regime,” he said.

The Syrian army advanced to the border and retook posts it abandoned in the early years of the war when rebels took over areas of south-west Syria.

“They are now on the Jordanian border and back to outposts they had evacuated early in the conflict,” Mr Saef said.

Another rebel spokesman said the army gains were helped by a pullback by the Jaish Al Ashair rebel group, which is backed by Jordan and had been responsible for patrolling that stretch of the border. A Syrian military source described the advance as a “big success”.

Elsewhere in Syria, government attacks on two areas included in fragile “de-escalation zones” killed four people, a monitoring group said.

One was killed in air strikes on a safe zone in central Syria, and another three died in shelling on a zone near the capital, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Seven others were wounded in the regime shelling that killed three civilians in a town in the Eastern Ghouta zone, a rebel bastion near Damascus.

“The shelling hit the town of Hammuriyeh early on Thursday, killing a woman, a man, and a child,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. The attack came a day after government shelling killed five civilians and wounded 10 more in the nearby town of Kfar Batna.

Air strikes have also pummelled rebel-held parts of the Jobar district of Damascus and the district of Ain Tarma.

Eastern Ghouta is one of four “de-escalation zones” announced in May by opposition backer Turkey and regime allies Iran and Russia after talks in Kazakhstan. Three of the zones have been agreed so far: in Eastern Ghouta, the northern parts of central Homs province, and in Syria’s south.

The fourth zone, in northwestern Idlib province, has yet to be implemented.

Syrian government air strikes yesterday killed a man in the ceasefire zone in Homs, the Observatory said.

Abbas Abu Osama, a resident of the town of Al Houla, said six strikeshit the town yesterday.

“We have our first casualty, killed in an air strike in Tal Dahab” near Al Houla, he said.

Mr Abdel Rahman confirmed that a man was killed in a raid but could not say whether he was a rebel fighter or civilian.