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Syrian army, Hezbollah advance deeper into border city

Xinhua, July 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Syrian army backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah have advanced deeper into a border city, further tightening the siege on the opposition militiamen, the state news agency SANA reported Tuesday.

The Syrian army and Hezbollah captured the district of Darb Kalasseh along with the entire orchards of the plains of the city of Zabadani, northwest of the capital Damascus and close to the Lebanese borders.

A main street connecting Zabadani with nearby towns has also fallen to the Syrian forces, two weeks after the government troops launched a campaign to capture the city from insurgents.

The Syrian army and Hezbollah have completely besieged the rebels inside the city amid a collapse in the latter's ranks, according to the report.

A day earlier, SANA said the military forces and Hezbollah had tightened the noose on the radical rebels in Zabadani, by capturing several supply routes and other vital points in the city's plains.

Citing a military source, SANA said the army forces severed the main supply lines the rebels were using to move arms and ammunition into that city.

The progress, SANA added, was a result of the escalated offensive which killed tens of "terrorists" in that city.

The control of the city, about 45 km northwest of the capital Damascus, is crucial to Syrian forces to consolidate government-held areas linking Lebanon and Syria and to secure a corridor for Hezbollah in and out of Syria.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 jihadi militants, mainly the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, have entrenched inside the city over the past couple of years, prompting the Syrian forces to strikes a siege around the city before the latest offensive.

The battle waged by the Syrian forces aims at clearing the city and the entire region of Qalamoun Mountains of the Nusra Front and its allied militants, who used the city as a conduit to smuggle militants and weapons from Lebanon into the western countryside of Damascus.

Winning the battle by the Syrian forces and Hezbollah would shield the Lebanese borders from the threat of the Nusra Front, amid reports that most of the blasts that targeted Lebanon recently were planned by the rebels in Syria and the cars were booby-trapped in Qalamoun. Endit