DNA
\nBEIRUT
\nA string of Syrian rebel-held towns and villages accepted government rule on Saturday as insurgent lines collapsed in parts of the southwest under an intense bombardment that the United Nations says has forced 160,000 people to flee.
\nThe southwest was an early hotbed of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and defeat there would leave rebels with just one remaining stronghold \u2014 the area around Idlib province bordering Turkey in the northwest.
\nRebels met Russian negotiators on Saturday to seek peace terms for Deraa province, where most of their southwest territory is located, but said these failed. Moscow is Assad\u2019s strongest ally and its air power since 2015 has been crucial to his recapture of vast swathes of Syria.
\nLocal groups in many towns seized by the army in recent days had negotiated their own surrender deals independently of the main rebel operations rooms after heavy air raids.
\nRebels said they had taken back several towns and villages lost to the army earlier in the day, but their overall loss of ground was still significant.
\nState 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\u2019s ally Hezbollah said numerous other towns and villages had agreed to come back under Assad\u2019s rule.
\nFierce battles were still ongoing around Deraa city, near the Jordanian border, where the army had repeatedly failed to capture a disused air base, rebels said. The northwestern chunk of Deraa province remains in opposition hands.
\nAir raids meanwhile intensified, said the monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as displaced people flocked to the border areas least likely to be hit, and the United Nations warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.
\nOne strike killed at least 10 people including five children in the town of al-Sahwa, east of Deraa, it said, raising to 126 the number of civilians killed in the offensive since fighting escalated on June 19.
\nThe army\u2019s offensive follows the capitulation of rebel enclaves near Homs and Damascus, including eastern Ghouta, which was recaptured after a scorched-earth assault that killed over a thousand civilians and laid waste to several towns.
\nWarfare in the southwest could risk a further escalation because of its proximity to Israel. The Israelis have already targeted Iran-backed militias fighting on Assad\u2019s side, which they have vowed to keep far from their country\u2019s borders.
\nThe government\u2019s offensive so far has focused on Deraa province, which borders Jordan, but not Quneitra province abutting the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
\nThe entire southwest is part of a \u201cde-escalation zone\u201d agreed last year by Russia, the United States and Jordan. Despite Washington\u2019s threats that it would respond to breaches of that arrangement, it has shown no sign of doing so, and the opposition\u2019s top negotiator on Thursday accused it of having struck a \u201cmalicious deal\u201d to stay silent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DNA BEIRUT A string of Syrian rebel-held towns and villages accepted government rule on Saturday as insurgent lines collapsed in parts of the southwest under an intense bombardment that the United Nations says has forced 160,000 people to flee. The southwest was an early hotbed of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and defeat there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n