The advance follows the capture of bustling provincial capital Idlib by Al-Nusra
...the current nom de guerre of al-Qaeda in the Levant, which isn't to be confused with al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant...
Front and its allies on Saturday.
"Violent festivities have been underway since Thursday night between the army and Al-Nusra and its allies... around the Mastuma base," the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The base, seven kilometres (four miles) south of Idlib city, is the biggest regime base in the province, said Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman.
The opposition groups had launched a "preventative attack on the base" where regime reinforcements were arriving ahead of a possible bid to recapture Idlib city, he said.
The Observatory added that festivities were underway between the Islamist forces and government troops in the area around the Shiite-majority village of Fuaa.
With the fall of Idlib city, regime forces in the province control only two towns and a handful of districts, along with the Abu Duhur military airport and five military bases.
Elsewhere in Syria, jihadists from the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group have pushed further into the Paleostinian Yarmuk camp in Damascus and now control 70 percent it, according to the Observatory.
IS launched an assault Wednesday on the camp, after Paleostinian groups inside enjugged
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
several jihadists.
Paleostinian fighters and Syrian rebels initially pushed back the IS assault but the jihadist counter-attacked and have made fresh advances since Thursday inside the camp.
They have reportedly captured a square where the camp's 18,000 residents usually gather to receive aid handouts.
The UN agency for Paleostinian refugees UNRWA e xpressed concern about the situation, saying it had been unable to deliver aid to the camp since Wednesday.
"UNRWA remains acutely anxious about the humanitarian impact of continuing armed conflict between gangs inside Yarmuk," front man Chris Gunness said.
"With intense fighting continuing into a third day, the lives and safety of the 18,000 Paleostinian and Syrian civilians inside Yarmouk are substantially threatened."
The Observatory said government forces were shelling parts of Yarmuk intensively while Paleostinian fighters battling IS hard boyz were running low on ammunition.
Yarmuk has been under government siege for more than a year.
But Syrian state media said the camp was under "the control of terrorist groups", adding that there had been no army presence in Yarmuk "for a long time". It gave no further details. Syria's government and state media refers to all those seeking to oust
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Terror of Aleppo ...
as "terrorists."