DAMASCUS (Dispatches) -- The Syrian army and its allies took complete control over Albukamal, Daesh’s last significant town in Syria, a military news service run by Hezbollah said Sunday.
The army had declared victory over Daesh in Albukamal earlier this month but the Takfiri terrorists then staged a counter-attack using sleeper cells hidden in the town.
Driving Daesh from Albukamal means only a few villages along the Euphrates and patches of nearby desert, as well as isolated pockets in other parts of the country, remain in Syria of the Takfiri caliphate it declared in 2014.
"The Syrian Army and its allies in the axis of resistance have expelled Daesh from its last stronghold on Syrian soil," the Hezbollah news service reported.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that most Daesh members withdrew from the town, with fighting continuing in the perimeter of Albukamal.
Daesh’s area of rule in Syria has crumbled this year under the army’s steady advances.
The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a military group backed by the U.S., has pounced on the occasion to grab land in the north, including Daesh’s former capital of Raqqah.
Syria's army and its allies have waged an offensive across central and eastern Syria. Syrian officials have said that Damascus seeks to regain control over areas held by the SDF.
Daesh's defeat has coincided with a rise in attacks by the occupying regime of Israel against Syrian troops and their allies and threats of a wider invasion.
On Saturday, an Israeli tank fired at a Syrian military position in the northern Golan Heights following what Tel Aviv alleged as construction work there.
Reports said the incident took place near the Syrian Druze village of Hader, which was targeted by Nusra Front terrorists two weeks ago.
The attack on Hader, which began with a terrorist blowing up a car and killing nine people, raised concern about Israeli intentions to use the incident as a pretext to occupy the village and other areas nearby.
On Monday, the Zionist regime’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that Tel Aviv would take military action in Syria when it saw fit.
The regime seized 1,200 square kilometers of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.
Hader is situated in the part of the occupied territory that is under the Syrian control, and its population is aligned with the Syrian government.
After the attack, people in the Golan Heights held a protest to condemn what they called the occupying regime of Israel’s support for anti-Damascus terrorists. Israeli forces were deployed to the area then to disperse the protesters.
The Zionist regime is widely believed to be providing al-Nusra with weapons, salaries, medical aid and intelligence to fight Syrian troops and keep them at bay from the territories under the occupation.
Tel Aviv has also repeatedly targeted the Syrian army positions, with Damascus saying the attacks were aimed at propping up the militants.