The Syrian army regained control of a road southeast of Aleppo Wednesday, state television said, taking back the regime's only supply route into the city from ISIS militants who had seized it last month.
Army forces took full control of the road which runs from Aleppo through the towns of Khanaser and Ithriya and links up with the cities of Hama and Homs further south, the channel flashed in a news bulletin. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group confirmed the report.
The road is the army's supply route to government-held western parts of Aleppo, home to around 2 million people.
Rebels are mainly in the eastern sector of the city, which was Syria's most populous before the revolution broke out in 2011.
ISIS said late last month it had taken control of most of the Syrian army checkpoints on the road and seized large caches of ammunition from army outposts in the area.
Areas around Aleppo have seen weeks of heavy fighting after Syrian troops backed by Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian fighters launched an offensive to retake territory around Aleppo from rebels and extremist fighters.
The offensive has concentrated so far on clearing insurgent-held areas south of Aleppo rather than the city itself.
It is one of several assaults carried out by pro-government ground forces since Russian jets began carrying out airstrikes on Sept. 30 in support of President Bashar Assad.
Syrian troops are also trying to advance to the east of Aleppo towards Kweires military airport, aiming to break a siege of the base by ISIS and other insurgents.
In central province of Homs, airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes on Al-Qaryatain, an ISIS-held town, killed 23 civilians, an activist group said Wednesday.
Among those killed in the Monday strikes on the Homs province town of Al-Qaryatain were three children and a woman, the Observatory said.
ISIS seized Al-Qaryatain in August, kidnapping several hundred civilians.
The group has also destroyed an ancient monastery in the town, which was once seen as a symbol of coexistence in Syria.
The Observatory relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, including opposition activists and individuals in government-held territory.
But rebels and their backers accuse Moscow of focusing largely on moderate and Islamist opposition forces rather than jihadists.
According to the Observatory, the first month of Russian strikes killed nearly 600 people, two-thirds of them fighters.
A U.S.-led coalition that has been bombing extremist targets in Syria since September 2014 has killed 3,649 people, according to the Observatory.
It says 226 of those, around six percent, have been civilians.
Meanwhile, pro-Assad social media mourned 4 generals said they were killed in Homs, Hama and Aleppo in the last two days.
More than 250,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011. (With agencies)
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