BEIRUT/WASHINGTON: Insurgents have regained control of several villages in northwest Syria from government forces and have advanced beyond them, edging closer to a coastal stronghold of President Bashar Assad, an activist group and other sources said Sunday.

The insurgents launched a counteroffensive after government forces, backed by allied militant groups, last week recaptured the villages on the Sahl al-Ghab plain, which lies close to the city of Hama and is crucial to the defense of coastal mountains that are the heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect minority.

The insurgents, the Army of Conquest alliance, Al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group and other factions.

On Sunday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Islamist fighters’ counteroffensive had forced the Syrian army to withdraw from such villages as Mansoura, Ziara and Tal Waset toward bases northwest of Hama city.

Seven government warplanes and helicopters carried out 80 strikes on the villages located on the plain, the Observatory added.

A source close to the Syrian government confirmed the rebel advances in the area.

The insurgents have made gains in several parts of Syria in recent months, including capturing most of Idlib province to the northeast of the Sahl al-Ghab plain.

The Observatory also said ISIS militants seized full control of Umm Housh, one of four villages in the northern province of Aleppo that lie along a rebel supply line from Turkey, which is a major backer of Syria’s opposition.

“ISIS is trying to seize control of these villages from rebels to cut their supply route between Aleppo city and its outskirts, and the town of Azaz,” a rebel bastion near the border, Observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman said.

He said two ISIS suicide bombers, one using a suicide belt and one in a bomb-laden car, began the assault on the villages Saturday night. The ensuing clashes, which continued throughout Sunday, killed 37 rebel fighters and 10 ISIS militants, Abdel-Rahman added. Another 20 rebels were reported missing in action.

In recent months the regime has suffered major losses in Syria’s north and east, as well as near its coastal heartland of Latakia province.

The Army of Conquest gains in Sahl al-Ghab plain, which borders the provinces of Latakia and Idlib, drove the rebel coalition closer to the regime’s regional military head quarters in Jureen. If the rebels manage to capture Jureen, they will be able to advance into the mountains of Latakia and bomb several communities from the Alawite sect.Attacks Sunday on residential areas in the northwest Idlib province left nine people dead, including seven children, the Observatory said.

Four were killed in a regime air raid on a school in the town of Zardanah while the other five died when rebels shelled Fuaa and Kafraya, the last two regime-held Shiite towns in the province.

Meanwhile, Syria’s official news agency SANA said the death toll from a rebel rocket attacks on the capital Damascus had risen to 11, including three children. 

SANA said 46 people were also wounded, some critically, and that 10 of the dead were killed in the central Al-Thawra neighborhood while the 11th person was killed in a nearby district.

The Britain-based Observatory, which uses a broad network of sources in Syria to gather information, confirmed the new toll.

The shelling in Damascus came as activists reported intense clashes between troops and insurgents in the Damascus suburb of Daraya. 

Meanwhile Saturday, U.S.-led forces conducted 16 airstrikes in Iraq and seven in Syria against ISIS targets, the U.S. military said.

In Iraq, five airstrikes near Mosul, three near Ramadi and three near Sinjar aimed to beat back the militants. Other strikes were located near Kirkuk, Fallujah, Tal Afar, Makhmur and Kabbaniyah, it said.

The airstrikes in Syria were concentrated around Hassakeh, Aleppo and Ain al-Arab, where they struck a bunker, a tank, anti-aircraft artillery pieces and tactical units, it said.