Beirut: Syrian government forces have taken control of villages in southern Syria, state media said on Saturday, part of a campaign they started this month against insurgents posing one of the biggest remaining threats to Damascus.

The large offensive is backed by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and initially made swift progress before slowing. The gains, made on Friday and Saturday, mark a new push in the government campaign.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said the village of Tal Al Majda in Sweida province and Tal Antar in Deraa were taken.

Both are near Jordan.

The south is the last notable foothold of the mainstream opposition to President Bashar Al Assad, who has consolidated control over much of western Syria after almost four years of civil war.

Al Qaida’s Syrian arm, the Nusra Front, is also active in the south and has clashed with western-back rebels. On Saturday Al Nusra drove US-backed rebels out of a strategic northern military base in fierce fighting that left dozens dead, a monitor said.

At least 29 fighters from the Western-armed Hazm movement were killed along with six Al Nusra Front militants, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said fierce fighting had broken out on Friday night for Base 46, west of the city of Aleppo.

“Al Nusra captured Base 46,” said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Britain-based Observatory.

Base 46 is a sprawling military compound that rebel fighters seized in November 2012 from troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

In a statement, residents in the nearby rebel-held village of Atareb criticised the attack on the base and appealed to Al Nusra to instead fight the “infidel regime and its allies”.

The offensive came a month after Al Nusra expelled Hazm from Regiment 111, another base they had taken from Al Assad’s forces.

Hazm is mainly present in northern Syria. Last year, it was the first to receive US-made anti-tank missiles from its Western backers.

It is one of a number rebel groups that the United States classes as “moderate”. They are loosely branded as the Free Syrian Army.

Syria’s conflict began in March 2011 as a popular revolt seeking democratic change, but later evolved into civil war after Al Assad’s regime launched a brutal crackdown on dissent.

About 220,000 people have since been killed in a devastating conflict that has driven half of Syria’s population from their homes.