BEIRUT: Syrian troops and allied militia Sunday chipped away at territory held by Daesh (ISIS) militants on several fronts across the country, state media and an activist group said.

On the diplomatic front, Russia said it supports the continuation of Syria peace talks under United Nations auspices, the long-running negotiations that were thrown into doubt by separate Moscow-backed peace talks launched last month.

Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have doubled down against Daesh in Syria’s fractured north, as well as near Damascus and the ancient city of Palmyra.

Regime forces Sunday edged closer to the town of Al-Bab, the last remaining Daesh bastion in Aleppo province. “Regime forces advanced and seized Owaisheh, a village east of Al-Bab,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group said. “They are hundreds of meters from the only route that [Daesh] has to access territory further east,” Observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman said.

They were backed by fighters from Lebanese movement Hezbollah and by Russian artillery, he said.

Al-Bab, 25 kilometers south of the border with Turkey, is seen as a prize by nearly all sides in Syria’s complex war. Government troops are approximately 5 kilometers from the town’s southern edges, but Turkey-backed rebels have already reached the edge of the town from the north.

Assad’s forces were also locked in fighting Sunday with Daesh in the central province of Homs.

Abdel-Rahman said the troops had captured the Hayyan oil field west of the desert city of Palmyra.

State news agency SANA said “Syrian troops expanded their area of control” near Palmyra after clearing two villages of Daesh.

The regime army Sunday also fought back against Daesh around Al-Seen military airport northeast of Damascus, the Observatory said.

Syrian troops have refocused on Daesh since capturing Aleppo in the biggest victory for Assad loyalists since the conflict first erupted in 2011. The militant group is excluded from Moscow- and Ankara-brokered Dec. 30 truce, which was followed by talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana last month.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sunday the Astana talks between representatives of Assad and opposition groups were a “breakthrough step” in efforts to resolve the crisis but were not instead of the U.N.-led talks.

“We are not planning to replace Geneva with the Astana format,” he said in an interview published on the ministry’s website Sunday.

The latest round of U.N. talks are planned to begin in Geneva on Feb. 20, according to diplomats.

The Astana talks were a diplomatic coup that underlined the growing Middle East clout of Russia, Iran and Turkey, and Washington’s diminished influence at a time when Donald Trump is settling into the presidency.

But the talks spotlighted sharp differences between Moscow and Tehran over the possible future participation of the United States, and also excluded Gulf states. Iran, whose relations with Washington have nosedived since Trump became president, opposes any U.S. involvement. Lavrov reiterated Sunday that the United States and Moscow were in a position to solve bilateral issues, improve ties and coordinate efforts to fight “international terrorism,” but said that it had to be on the basis of mutual respect.U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said the United Nations would be attending a follow-up technical meeting in Astana on Feb. 6 of the talks on the implementation and monitoring of the Syria cease-fire.

In other developments Saturday, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces started a new phase of its campaign against the Daesh-held city of Raqqa, aiming to complete its encirclement and sever the road to militant strongholds in Deir al-Zor province.

The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, said in a statement the action was being undertaken with “increasing support from the (U.S.-led) international coalition forces” through both airstrikes and backing from coalition special forces on the ground.

A SDF commander told Reuters the forces had so far advanced a few kilometers in the latest phase, which aims to capture areas to the east of the city, including the highway linking it to Deir al-Zor province.

Representatives of the U.S.-led coalition looked on as the statement declaring the start of the new phase was read out in a village in northern Raqqa province.

This is the third phase of the Raqqa operation. The first phase targeted areas north of Raqqa city. The second, targeting areas to the west of the city, is ongoing, with SDF forces yet to capture the Daesh-held Euphrates dam.