BEIRUT: The Syrian government has increased the size of the territory under its control by two and a half times in just two months, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Sunday, as Syrian forces backed by regional allies and the Russian air force seized thousands of square kilometers from Daesh (ISIS) in the center of the country.

Syrian government forces supported by Iranian-backed militias and the Russian air force have recaptured much of the country’s central Homs province from Daesh in 2017. Most of the province is desert. It contains several energy fields as well as phosphate minerals.

They are driving toward the city of Deir al-Zor, kept under siege by Daesh militants since 2015.

Shoigu, in an interview on Russia’s Rossiya 24 TV, said recapturing Deir al-Zor “will say a lot, if not everything, about the end of the battle with” Daesh. He called the Syrian army’s gains “really impressive.”

Sergei Rudskoi, chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, said that as of Aug. 1, the regime controlled some 74,200 square kilometers.

Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday that government forces killed at least 25 Daesh militants in a commando operation in the northeast of Homs province. It said the soldiers rappelled down from helicopters to ambush the militants, under the cover of Russian airstrikes. Six members of the regime forces were also killed, it said.

A military source said the operation occurred “20 kilometers inside Daesh terrorist lines.”

The raid allowed regime forces to seize control of three villages in the area, official news agency SANA reported the source as saying.

The army has captured swaths of territory from the militants in the province. According to the Observatory, Daesh now controls just dozens of villages in the east of Homs.Elsewhere, a rebel faction said it killed 20 army soldiers outside the capital in a tunnel blast as the battle for Damascus’ northeastern suburbs showed no signs of letting up. Wael Olwan, spokesman for the Failaq al-Rahman faction, said the operation took place before dawn Sunday. The Observatory said 16 soldiers were reported missing because of the blast.

A Russian mediated cease-fire announced last month has failed to quell the fighting between the government and rebels on the northeastern edges of Damascus. Failaq al-Rahman says it is not party to the agreement, and the government says it is fighting terrorists. The government has leaned on its air force and its ground-to-ground missile systems to push rebels out and away from the capital. Several towns have been destroyed.