SYRIA mobilised new forces against Saudi-backed insurgents yesterday, while declaring its openness to renewed peace talks.

Al-Masdar News reported that a large convoy of paramilitary fighters had left Latakia province on a roundabout journey to Aleppo.

They will join the elite Tiger Forces brigade, fresh from the liberation of Palmyra from Islamic State (Isis).

The Tiger Forces are preparing a push, backed by Russian air power, to cut off around 5,000 militants occupying the east of Aleppo city.

Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi announced a major offensive against the Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front Islamist groups in the province.

Ahrar al-Sham was one of the factions at the adjourned Geneva peace talks.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura yesterday that Damascus remained committed to the peace talks.

He blamed the breaches of the six-week-old ceasefire on Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who have both supported Islamist militants in Syria, but said that the Syrian people remained confident of their ultimate victory over Isis, the Nusra Front and other terrorists.

Democratic Union Party (PYD) co-president Saleh Mohamed has defended the declaration of an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria and demanded representation at talks.

Writing in yesterday’s New York Times, Mr Mohamed claimed the Kurdish National Council, present in Geneva, did not represent Syrian Kurds.