SYRIAN troops took more ground near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights yesterday despite Israel’s missile attack on Damascus the night before.

State news agency Sana reported that the Syrian army and volunteer militia captured the Shihab hill in the south-western part of the Damascus countryside from al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front terrorists.

The hill overlooks the Nusra-occupied town of Mughr al-Mir and the only road to Beit Jinn village, a Nusra stronghold approximately 12 miles from the Golan Heights border.

The offensive came after Israel reportedly launched six missiles towards the Syrian capital of Damascus on Monday evening, hitting the Jamraya suburb where a scientific research centre is based.

Syrian air defence systems intercepted three of the missiles, Sana reported. The attack was the second Israeli strike on Syria in the past week.

On Saturday Israel attacked an ammunition store south of Damascus. State television reported that the strike resulted in material losses however two missiles were intercepted by pro-government forces.  

The Syrian Foreign Ministry protested over the Israeli attack to the UN yesterday, saying a simultaneous terrorist rocket and mortar attack on the capital could not be a coincidence.

Meanwhile Isis claimed responsibility for a bombing on a bus in the western city of Homs yesterday morning, killing at least eight and wounding 18.

And on Monday the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed it had met with Kurdish YPG militia and allied local forces the day before.

The Syrian Kurdish militia are currently fighting to remove Isis from lands to the east of the Euphrates river.  

Major General Yevgeniy Poplavskiy said Russian aircraft and military “advisers” on the ground would provide support to the forces, which the US has stopped arming in a bid to appease Nato ally Turkey which considers the YPG terrorists.

In return a new “committee for the management of the eastern territories” will not challenge the Syrian government’s sovereignty over the land after it is wrestled back from Isis.