More gains for Assad’s army in N., S., and E. Syria and Damascus

DEBKAfile:  Assad’s army continued its victorious progress Monday in  the North, for the first time breaking the rebel siege on the strategic town of Maarat al-Nuaman and pushing toward the key Aleppo-Damascus highway. Sunday, the Syrian army managed to push the rebels out of the eastern Damascus district of Barza, a stronghold they held for almost two years and, at the same time, launch a major offensive on the rebels holding ground near the international airport.

Sunday night, a Syrian air strike killed 11 at a Kurdish village in the oil-producing province of Hasaka in northeast Syria, near a hill used by rebels to raid Syrian oil fields.