DAMASCUS — The Syrian army regained full control of Rankous in the Qalamoun region, Al-Manar television and Syrian state news agency reported on Wednesday, April 9.

Regime forces continued to hunt down remnants of “terrorist” groups on the outskirts of the area known as the Northern Neighborhood and surrounding mountains after killing scores of them in town, SANA said.

“Army units and armed forces completed their operations in the town of Rankous in Damascus province and restored security and stability to the town after killing a large number of terrorists,” the agency said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime Britain-based monitoring group, had earlier confirmed that fierce fighting was taking place in the area between Nusra Front along with Islamist brigades and the Hizbullah militiamen backed by the regime and the National Defense forces.

The announcement came a day after the army surrounded and shelled the town, one of the last remaining rebel strongholds in the mountainous region. State TV said the final battle to capture Rankous lasted 18 hours.

Two car bombs have exploded in the Syrian city of Homs, killing at least 25 people and wounding scores more, state news agency Sana says.

The report blamed “terrorists” for the blasts, half an hour apart, in the Karam al-Luz district.

The Observatory said the bombings in Homs had been carried out in an area that is mostly populate by Alawites – the sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, whose forces are fighting alongside the Syrian Army, told Lebanese daily As-Safir that Assad’s regime is no longer endangered by rebels. 

“The danger of the Syrian regime falling has ended, and we have exceeded the risk of partition,” he said in an interview published Monday.

He also said he believed “the choice of military rule has failed,” adding that the aim of the conflict in Syria was not to create democracy and justice, or to fight corruption, but to change Syria and its stance. 

The United Nations has registered 1 million refugees in Lebanon since the conflict began three years ago, the highest concentration of refugees worldwide. They are housed in homesand local communities rather than refugee camps.

The head of Lebanon’s Maronite Christian Church Beshara Rai suggested on Wednesday that Syrian refugees should be housed in camps inside Syria, reflecting growing frustration among Lebanese over the burden imposed on their country by their neighbors’ war.

“Why not install some camps for them in Syrian territory where there is security? The area of Syria is 20 times greater than that of Lebanon,” he said. “There is plenty of spare space in secure terrority or at least to facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid in no man’s land between the borders of Lebanon and Syria.”

Candidates for presidential elections in Syria this year will be able to submit their applications during the last 10 days of April, state media reported, quoting Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi.

The minister also insisted that the elections would proceed on time, despite a raging civil war that has killed more than 150 000 people.

“The door for candidacy will open in the last 10 days of this month,” state news agency SANA quoted Zohbi as saying in an interview with Al-Manar, the channel of Lebanon’s Hizbullah movement, late on Monday.

“The overwhelming majority of Syrians are pressing and calling for President Bashar al-Assad to continue to lead the country as president of the republic,” he said.

Zohbi insisted that the elections, due to be held before June, would proceed on schedule.