Roundup: Syrian army vows to capture region along Lebanon border

The general command of the Syrian army stressed Friday the military forces' resolve to fully capture a barren region along the borders with neighboring Lebanon, the official SANA news agency reported.

In a statement, the military general command said the operations in the rugged Qalamoun region, north of the capital Damascus and along the borderline with Lebanon, will continue in the barrens of that mountainous region until dislodging the rebels from Syrian border towns.

It added that the Syrian military backed by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah carried out successful offensives in Qalamoun in recent months, which resulted in the killing of many militants with the Islamic State (IS) group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

The military progress in Qalamoun constitutes a "heavy blow" to the terrorists, said the statement, adding the operations there helped in securing the road connecting the southern Syrian region with the central and coastal Syrian cities and in securing the Lebanese border towns from the terrorists' threats.

The operations also enabled the Syrian army to cut all supply lines the militant groups were using to smuggle in fighters and cash from Lebanon, the statement added.

The statement came just hours after the official media outlets said the Syrian troops and Hezbollah captured the strategic hilltop of Thalajeh in Qalamoun on Friday.

SANA said the recapture of Thalajeh in the barrens of the town of Flaita near the Lebanese borders came after a series of qualitative operations, during which tens of militants were killed.

Meanwhile, Secretary General of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said Friday that the achievements made in the past few days in Qalamoun gave the Syrian army and Hezbollah the "upper hand" in that region.

In a televised speech, Nasrallah said that the element that speeded up the commencement of the Qalamoun battle was the direct attack by the jihadist militants on positions of the Syrian army and Hezbollah in Qalamoun, particularly the recent attacks by the Nusra Front on border areas.

Nasrallah stressed that Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Hezbollah are the ones, who are actually fighting IS, adding that media and political misdirection is being employed on a very large scale to twist facts in this regard.

The statements by the Syrian army and Hezbollah's chief came apparently to boost the spirits of the Syrian soldiers, who have suffered a series of setbacks recently in northern and southern Syria.

The activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the extremist militants advanced Friday on a road connecting the towns of Ariha and Jisr al-Shughour in the northwestern province of Idlib, destroying seven Syrian tanks.

It said the Syrian warplanes also took part in the battle, striking the militants' positions in that area.

Jihadist group, mainly the Nusra Front, captured much of Idlib province near the Turkish borders over the past two months. The extremist militants are apparently ramping up their assaults to strip the government forces of the few remaining positions in Idlib.

Meanwhile, the Observatory said in intense clashes also raged Thursday between the government forces and the IS militants at the southern entrances of the northern city of Hasaka, which is largely inhabited by Syrian Kurds.

Over the past few days, the IS staged 18 suicide bombings in a bid to storm Hasaka, but the defenses of the Syrian military have so far kept them from entering this city.

Experts said IS wants to storm Hasaka to revenge the losses it suffered by the hands of the Kurdish fighters in predominantly Kurdish areas in northern Syria.

The terror-designated group also wants to capture Hasaka to connect areas under its control in eastern Syria with its de facto capital of Raqqa province in northern Syria. Endit