Syrian forces backed by Hezbollah
militants from Lebanon are said to have made significant advances
against rebels after heavy Russian air strikes.
Government gains are being reported in Idlib, Hama and Latakia provinces.
Russia
says its aircraft carried out more than 60 missions over Syria in the
past 24 hours, and that the Islamic State group was its main target.
But the Russian strikes appear to have impacted heavily on rebels fighting both the government and IS.
The
main battlefront is currently close to the key highway that links the
capital Damascus with other major cities, including Aleppo, and
President Bashar al-Assad's forces are believed to be seeking to cut off
rebels in Idlib.
Before Russia's intervention, Idlib had all but
fallen to a rebel coalition that had been seriously threatening Mr Assad
and his heartland as well as fighting IS, BBC Arab affairs editor
Sebastian Usher reports.
The government gains were reported both by Damascus and opposition activists.
Analysis: Jim Muir, BBC News, Beirut
Government
forces are basically trying to win back areas they lost earlier this
year, to the north of the city of Hama, and in the northern mountains
of Latakia province near the coast. Rebels had penetrated there after
unifying their ranks and with more concerted backing from their outside
supporters, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
That
posed a real threat to the heartland of Bashar al-Assad's regime, and
it is almost certainly what triggered the Russian intervention and a
stepped-up role by Iran.
A senior commander of the al-Nusra
Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate which has forces in the area, has issued a
call to all the rebel groups to unify and launch a co-ordinated
counter-attack on all fronts.
He said if the rebels lost the
initiative to the regime and the Russians, they would suffer a series of
collapses and their future would be bleak. The battle for Syria and Iraq in maps Syria's civil war explained
Russia
says its strikes, which began on 30 September, have been closely
co-ordinated with the Syrian government. Russian President Vladimir
Putin said on Sunday that the strikes were the execution of "previously
drawn plans".
"We persistently conducted reconnaissance, for a
long period, from space and from the air," he told the Rossiya 24 news
channel.
Russia's defence ministry said: "Su-34, Su-24M and
Su-25SM planes carried out 64 sorties from the Hmeymim air base against
63 targets in the provinces of Hama, Latakia, Idlib and Raqqa."
The
US-led coalition that has been targeting IS in Syria and Iraq announced
it had carried out 24 sorties on Saturday, seven of them in Syria.
Russia
said that a second video conference with the US military to discuss
ways of avoiding accidents between the two countries' planes over Syria
had been "professional and constructive".
In his comments to
Rossiya 24, Mr Putin said he believed his country's military
intervention in Syria had the support of both Sunni and Shia Muslims
across the Middle East.
Questioned about the Middle East's
sectarian divisions, the Russian leader said: "In Syria, we do not,
under any circumstances, want to get tied up in any inter-confessional
conflict."
In another development, the Russian leader held talks
in the Russian resort city of Sochi with the Saudi Defence Minister,
Mohammed bin Salman.
Syria's civil war
Why is there a war in Syria?
Anti-government
protests developed into a civil war that four years on has ground to a
stalemate, with the Assad government, Islamic State, an array of Syrian
rebels and Kurdish fighters all holding territory. Who is fighting whom?
Government
forces concentrated in Damascus and the centre and west of Syria are
fighting the jihadists of Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as
less numerous so-called "moderate" rebel groups, who are strongest in
the north and east. These groups are also battling each other. What's the human cost?
More
than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a million injured. Some 11
million others have been forced from their homes, of whom four million
have fled abroad - including growing numbers who are making the
dangerous journey to Europe. How has the world reacted?
Iran,
Russia and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement are propping up the Alawite-led
Assad government, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar back the more
moderate Sunni-dominated opposition, along with the US, UK and France.
Hezbollah and Iran are believed to have troops and officers on the
ground, while a Western-led coalition and Russia are carrying out air
strikes.
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