AFP

Fighting for a key military base outside Syria's main northern city of Aleppo killed at least 15 pro-government militiamen on Thursday, a monitoring group said.

"Fifteen members of the National Defence Forces were killed in fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Nusra Front and Islamist groups in the east of Aleppo province and near Base 80," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Both ISIL and Al-Nusra are loyal to Al-Qaeda and have played a major role in fighting on the ground, to the concern of the opposition's Western supporters.

The army recaptured Base 80, which had provided the garrison for Aleppo's military and civilian airports, at the weekend after months of fighting.

It was one of a series of setbacks for the rebels in recent weeks around the big cities of Aleppo and Damascus.

North of the capital on Wednesday, fighting raged in the Qalamoun mountains near the Lebanese border, where a flare-up of violence has sparked a new exodus of refugees.

The mixed Christian-Sunni Muslim area is strategic because it provides a key supply line for rebels around both Damascus and the third city of Homs to its north.

"The humanitarian situation is very bad," an opposition activist in the area told AFP by Internet.

"Because of the density of the population here, we fear a real catastrophe."

Thousands of refugees have fled Qalamoun for neighbouring Lebanon in recent days, swamping the small border town of Arsal.

A Syrian military source said there had been fighting in the Qalamoun town of Deir Attiyeh with rebel fighters who had fled the army's recapture this week of nearby Qara.

Troops meanwhile pressed an offensive against the last rebel-held districts of Homs. At least 12 people were killed in the exchange of fire in the central city, the Observatory said.

Date created : 2013-11-21