More than a dozen Syrian regime forces have been killed fighting Daesh (ISIS) in a devastated southern district of the capital Damascus, a monitoring group said Monday.
Forces loyal to Bashar Assad ramped up their ground operations and bombing raids against the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in southern Damascus last Thursday.
Since then, 15 pro-Assad fighters have been killed as well as 19 Daesh militants, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based war monitor said the assault has also left 12 civilians dead, including women and children.
In its turn, Amaq news agency said Daesh had killed 29 troops.
"Regime forces are continuing to bomb the southern parts of the capital with rockets, artillery, air strikes and helicopters," the Observatory said.
Yarmouk was once a densely populated and thriving district of the capital, but it has been ravaged by violence since Syria's conflict broke out in 2011.
Syria's government imposed a crippling siege on it in 2012, and fighting has also broken out between rebels and rival militants.
In 2015, Daesh overran most of Yarmouk, and other rebels and militants, including from Al-Qaeda's former affiliate, agreed to withdraw just a few weeks ago.
Simultaneously, the Syrian army was recapturing the last rebel pockets in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus that had been the opposition's main bastion near the capital.
Troops last week shifted their attention to Yarmouk, but humanitarian organizations have sounded the alarm.
The U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency said the bombardment has put the last operating hospital in Yarmouk out of service and displaced most of the camp's 6,000 remaining civilians.
Fateh al-Intifada, a pro-regime Palestinian paramilitary group, has mourned dozen of fighters said they had been killed by former al-Qaeda group. The Militia has engaged in fierce clashes with Tahrir al-Sham and Daesh in Yarmouk camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad district.
Bashar Assad, backed by Iran and Russia, is seeking to crush the last few besieged rebel enclaves, building on the defeat of insurgents in the eastern Ghouta region, which was the rebels' last major stronghold near the capital.
Rebel fighters on Saturday began to withdraw from an enclave they held northeast of Damascus in the eastern Qalamoun region in a surrender agreement with the regime. They are being transported to opposition-held territory at the Turkish border.
Although the conquest of eastern Qalamoun and the enclave south of Damascus will leave just one remaining besieged rebel enclave, north of the city of Homs, large parts of Syria at the borders with Jordan, Israel, Turkey and Iraq remain outside Assad's control.
Anti-Assad rebels hold a chunk of territory in the southwest and the northwest, and Kurdish-led militias, backed by the United States, control an expanse of northern and eastern Syria. (With Agencies)
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