Hizbollah in Syria fighting near Israeli lines — monitor

BEIRUT — Lebanon's Hizbollah, Syrian regime forces and Iranian officers fighting rebels in southern Syria have advanced to the edge of Israeli-occupied territory, a monitor and state media said Wednesday.

"Regime troops and their Hizbollah-led allies are advancing in the area linking Daraa, Quneitra and Damascus provinces," close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

For the first time, Syrian state television acknowledged that President Bashar Al Assad's army is being backed by Hizbollah and Iranian officers in its fight against a nearly four-year rebellion.

"The operation launched by the Syrian army is being fought in cooperation with... Hizbollah and Iran," a Syrian army officer told state television.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP: "It's Hizbollah that is leading the attack on the southern front."

On January 18, six Hizbollah fighters and an Iranian general were killed in an Israeli air strike in Quneitra.

According to the Observatory, which estimates 5,000 Hizbollah fighters are deployed in Syria, pro-regime forces on Wednesday seized the village of Deir Maker in the west of Damascus province, near Quneitra.

The advance comes a day after they pushed rebels out of Deir Al Adas village and the surrounding hills.

The Observatory said the battle for Deir Al Adas, which had been out of regime control since January last year, killed 20 rebels.

The latest reports come four days after the Lebanese Shiite group and the Syrian army launched an offensive to reclaim swathes of territory held by the rebels in the south.

Nine regime troops have been killed in the fighting since Monday, the Observatory said.

Syria’s state SANA news agency meanwhile reported “advances as part of a vast operation by the army and armed groups”.

The assault near the armistice line on the Golan is aimed at “breaking the stretch of territory that they [rebels] are trying to establish” at the border, a Syrian security source said.

Syrian rebels and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front had in recent months made sweeping gains in the south of the country.

Daraa and Quneitra are located near Damascus, the border with Jordan as well as the Golan Heights.