Syria: Syrian government retakes frontier with Israel on Golan Heights
The Syrian government regained control of the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for the first time in seven years on Monday, after Islamic State-linked militants gave up their last pocket of territory in the area.
The breakthrough against the militants, reported by state media and an opposition-linked war monitoring group, capped a six-week-long campaign to retake the southwest corner of the country.
Rebels captured the area along the Golan Heights after a popular uprising broke out against President Bashar Assad in 2011. An IS-linked outfit known as the Khaled bin Al-Waleed Army later seized the area from the opposition fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the militants surrendered control of the Yarmouk Basin in southwestern Syria on Monday.