Syrian rebels

AMMAN / BEIRUT (Reuters) – A string of Syrian rebel-held towns and villages in the United States has been under pressure by the United Nations.

The southwest was an early hotbed of the president against Bashar al-Assad and defeated there would not be much of a country. Idlib bordering province Turkey in the northwest.

Rebels puts Russian negotiators on Saturday to seek peace terms for Deraa province, where most of them are located, but said these failed. Moscow is Assad's strongest ally and its air power since 2015 has been crucial to its recapture of vast swathes of Syria.

Local groups in many cities independently of the rebel operations after heavy air raids.

State television broadcast footage from inside the towns of Dael and al-Ghariya al-Gharbiya, where people were shown chanting pro-Assad slogans. A war monitor and a military media unit run by the government's ally Hezbollah said numerous other towns and villages had agreed to come back under Assad's rule.

Fierce battles were still roiling the area around Deraa city, near the Jordanian border, where the army was trying to capture a disused air base, rebels said, and the northwestern chunk of Deraa province remains in opposition hands.

Air raids continued in the meantime, said the monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as displaced people flocked to the border areas and the United Nations warned about a humanitarian catastrophe.

The army's offensive follows the capitulation of rebel enclaves near Homs and Damascus, including eastern Ghouta, which was recaptured after a scorched-earth badault that killed over a thousand civilians and laid waste to several towns.

Warfare in the southwest could be further escalated because of its proximity to Israel. The Israelis have already targeted Iran-backed militias fighting on Assad's side, which they have vowed to keep from their country's borders.

The government's offensive so far has focused on Deraa province, which Jordan borders, but not Quneitra province abutting the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The entire southwest is part of a "de-escalation zone" agreed last year by Russia, the United States and Jordan. Despite Washington's threats that it would respond to breaches of this arrangement, it has shown that it is doing so, and the opposition has made it difficult to stay silent.

NEGOTIATIONS

Insurgent negotiators had held meetings with the United States, but without the army or police entering the area.

The talks in the town of Bosra al-Sham, whose Roman citadel is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, collapsed on Saturday, however, as the insurgents rejected Russia's proposed terms for their surrender, a spokesman rebel said.

Jordan has been facilitating talks between rebels factions and Moscow over a deal that would end the violence in exchange for the return of state rule in Deraa province on its border.

Russian negotiators have asked for rebels accepting the terms of their agreement with the United States of America.

The southwest rebels did not accept this, and were instead proposing the return of civilian state institutions in the opposition areas and the entry of Russian military police rather than Syrian government forces.

The army has already captured large parts of the eastern zone of rebel-held territory in Deraa province, however.

In eastern parts of Deraa, the army took control of al-Ghariya al-Sharqiya and al-Ghariya al-Gharbiya and Um Walad, after taking al-Harak, Busra al-Harir and surrounding areas in recent days.

In western parts of Deraa, the army has regained control over the towns of Dael and Ibta. There were also some areas of al-Musayfra and Kuheil in eastern Deraa, and Tafas, al-Muzairib and Sheikh Saad in western Deraa.

The Observatory reported that the warplanes carried out in the provinces. So far, about 100 civilians have been killed in air raids and shelling since June 19, it said.