A STRING of Syrian army victories over foreign-backed extremists were confirmed by reports yesterday as the battle for Aleppo ground on.

Troops advanced in the north and south of rebel-held east Aleppo, attacking Tel Sheik Saeed hill and the Bushtan al-Pasaha districts.

A local source said talks had begun between some militant groups in Bushtn al-Pasha on a possible amnesty allowing them to leave the city.

But the main groups in Aleppo, al-Qaida affiliate the Levant Conquest Front (LCF) and the fundamentalist Nour al-Din al-Zinki, have refused to negotiate.

The government has offered safe passage to civilians and militants who lay down their arms, but Russia Today correspondent Murad Gazdiev reported this week that insurgent snipers were targeting those who try to flee.

In central Hama province, the army captured the key town of Kawkab and a more than a dozen villages seized by LCF offshoot Jund al-Aqsa in recent weeks.

A disastrous counterattack left scores of militants dead.

Ma’an, where the militants killed dozens of women and children of the Alawite minority in 2014, was briefly taken, but the army was forced to retreat.

The army took advantage of infighting between the al-Qaida affiliate and the Western-backed Ahrar al-Sham to reverse their recent gains.

Meanwhile, 150 Jund al-Aqsa militants swore allegiance to Islamic State (Isis) after fleeing to its eastern stronghold of Raqqa.

East of Damascus, government troops controlled the town of Reyhan after driving insurgents out on Wednesday night. That leaves the army just a mile from Douma, the centre of the Ghouta pocket.

In the towns of al-Hama and Qudsaya, to the west of Damascus, rebels surrendered their heavy weaponry to the army in the latest of a series of truces negotiated independently of the United Nations.

Some 150 militants and their families will be evacuated, but another 400 will accept a government amnesty and stay on.

Elsewhere, troops and Palestinian militias captured the northern districts of the Yarmouk refugee camp south of the capital, after being forced out by Isis earlier this year.