Army presses IS in north Syria: monitor, military source

Syrian government forces seized territory from the Islamic State group on several fronts in the country's north today.

Fighting rocked the strategic province of Aleppo, which borders Turkey and has seen some of the worst violence of Syria's nearly six-year conflict.

Today, troops "seized 18 towns and villages, including the town of Taduf and a number of strategic hilltops in eastern Aleppo province, totalling about 600 square kilometres," a Syrian military source said.

Taduf had been held by IS jihadists and lies near Al-Bab, a key town where rebels backed by Turkish soldiers, artillery and air power defeated IS last week.
 

Regime forces today also moved into nearly two dozen villages abandoned by IS near the town of Manbij, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Manbij is held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters. IS withdrew from the area earlier Monday in what Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman called a sign of "swift collapse" of jihadist ranks.

"Regime forces moved into those 23 villages, linking up with SDF forces in the area," he said.

SDF spokesman Talal Sello told AFP today that his forces would not clash with the regime there.

"We are adjacent to regime forces in several places (across northern Syria), and there's been a kind of truce between us. So there will not be clashes between us" at Manbij, Sello said.

The Observatory says the government advance in the area is part of a bid to block Turkish-backed forces from expanding their zones of control in Aleppo province.

But regime troops are also trying to advance east to reach IS-held Khafsah, the main station pumping water into Aleppo city, Abdel Rahman said.

Residents of the northern city have been had no water for 42 days, after IS jihadists cut the supply at Khafsah around 90 kilometres away.

And further south, government troops fought to within four kilometres of the ancient desert city of Palmyra, which IS recaptured in December.