Assad visits army positions in Eastern Ghouta: SANA

Bashar Assad on Sunday visited his army positions in Eastern Ghouta, the dictator's Telegram account said.

"In the line of fire in Eastern Ghouta ... President Assad with heroes of the Syrian Arab army," a caption said next to photographs of Assad in a crowd of men in military clothing, some perched on top of tanks.

The photographs were taken in a street lined with damaged building fronts with a couple of parked tanks.

On Saturday, regime forces seized Kafr Batna and Sabqa in the south of the enclave, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as thousands of civilians fled into regime-held territory.

Russia-backed regime forces have retaken more than 80 percent of the last opposition bastion outside the capital since launching a blistering air and ground offensive on Feb. 18, the Observatory says.

More than 1,400 civilians have been killed since the regime offensive began, the Observatory says, while tens of thousands more have fled.

In their turn, Ghouta rebels said they had killed more than 65 troops and destroying three tanks overnight in Hammouriyah and Jisreen.

Ten soldiers were taken captive, rebel commander told Zaman al-Wasl.

Jaish al-Islam said its fighters have foiled regime attack on al-Rihan suburb, killing about 100 troops.

Rebels also have killed a pro-regime commander who formed militia from local fighters to attack rebels in Hammouriyah.

Eastern Ghouta is home to around 400,000 people, living under a five-year siege that has made food and medical aid exceedingly rare.

The regime army retook two more towns in eastern Ghouta on Saturday, a war monitor said, pressing an offensive to capture the rebel enclave on the doorstep of Damascus.

The assault has split opposition-held areas into three shrinking pockets each held by different rebels.

The southern pocket is held by the Faylaq al-Rahman rebel group, which the Observatory says counts some 8,000 fighters in its ranks.

After Saturday's advance, the group now controls just a handful of areas, the monitor says: Arbin - the largest - as well as Zamalka, Hazeh, Ain Tarma and parts of the Damascus neighbourhood of Jobar.

Thousands of civilians streaming out of the enclave into regime-held areas on Saturday came mostly from this southern sector, it said.

On Friday, the enclave's main rebel groups - Faylaq al-Rahman, Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham - said they would be willing to hold direct U.N.-sponsored talks with regime backer Russia on a ceasefire.

Jaish al-Islam controls an area around the main town of Douma in the north of the former enclave, while Ahrar al-Sham holds influence in the area of the town of Harasta to the west.

With Agencies