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The Syrian government troops have started a large-scale offensive on the northern outskirts of Damascus, after tightening the screws on rebels in the southern rim of the capital.
The forces have been besieging the town of Qara in the al- Qalamoun mountains north of Damascus and near the border with Lebanon, Syria's al-Watan newspaper said Sunday.
The road that connects Damascus with the central province of Homs and also leads to Qara has been cut off after several instances of rebel sniper fire on civilian cars.
"Cutting off the road will not last for long and the aim is to protect the civilians," the paper said, citing a military source. It said the road would be open again once the army has secured it.
"The army has rocked the al-Qalamoun mountains with artillery fire and airstrikes that targeted the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and their military equipment and vehicles," the paper said, quoting local residents.
"Intensive displacement movement" by residents of Qara to the nearby Syrian towns of Nabek, Deir Attieh and the town of Ersal in northern Lebanon are also reported by the locals.
The paper attributed the flow of internally displaced refugees to the entry of hundreds of armed rebels to Qara fromLebanon's Ersal, which has emerged as part of a smuggling route for jihadists and weapons into Syria.
By fully encircling the town of Qara, government troops have completed their control over all of the eastern region from Homs to Damascus, and the rebels would have no choice but to return to Ersal, the paper said.
The next step for the army is to push into Qara and other towns on the northern outskirts of Damascus and undermine the rebels' presence there, the paper added.
The military operation in the northern rim of Damascus came after a series of swift and effective operations in the southern and eastern countryside of Damascus as part of the military tactic to dislodge the rebels from key areas of Damascus, Homs and also the northern province of Aleppo.
Al-Watan said around one million residents of Aleppo are being taken as human shields by the rebels in the southern and eastern districts of Aleppo to hinder the advance of government forces.
It also said that the army had recaptured all the towns and villages in the southeastern countryside of Homs after heavy fighting with rebels.
The troops' progress apparently aims to empower the position of the administration of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the upcoming Geneva II peace conference.
A Syrian political analyst attributed the recent sweeping victories of the Syrian army against the rebels to "big strategic" military approaches on several fronts.
"The reality is that the Syrian army is making big victories in many areas. We notice that there is very big strategic military plan carried out by the Syrian army," Riad Saqer told Xinhua in a recent interview.
