[AnNahar] Rebels including al-Qaeda loyalists have seized most of the Syrian side of the armistice line with Israel on the Golan Heights, a monitoring group said on Saturday.Al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and its allies launched a major offensive against government forces in Quneitra province last month, capturing the sole crossing point over the armistice line to the Israeli-occupied sector of the strategic plateau.
"The regime is on the retreat before the advancing rebels," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France-Presse. "The regime has now lost control of about 80 percent of towns and villages in Quneitra province."
The regime has lost control of much of the east to jihadists of the Islamic State group, including all of Raqa province and much of Deir Ezzor.
The air force carried out strikes on an IS training base in Deir Ezzor province on Saturday, killing eight of its Lion of Islams, the Observatory said.
More than 40 IS jihadists were maimed in the raids, it added.
The Assad regime has stepped up its air campaign against IS in the east in recent weeks, but the near-daily strikes have exacted a heavy toll among civilians in Lion of Islam-controlled towns.