A rebel fighter raises his weapon, as smoke billows in the background, in the northern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughur, April 25.

DAMASCUS — Hard-line Syrian rebel groups seized the strategic town of Jisr Al-Shoughour on Saturday in northwestern Syria, sending government troops fleeing after intense clashes that have seen the opposition take nearly all of a crucial province.

Following their advances in the Idlib Province, rebels battled Syrian army troops on Thursday in the northwestern Latakia province in areas close to President Bashar Assad’s ancestral home, the army and rebels said.

An army source told state news agency SANA fighter jets hit insurgent hideouts in the northern Latakia countryside with “tens killed and injured.”

Rebels have in the past sought to bring their four-year-long battle to topple Assad’s rule close to the coastal areas in government-held Latakia, the stronghold of Assad’s minority Alawite sect. Latakia is the main port in Syria and crucial to the rebels goal of toppling Assad’s government.

Two rebel sources said the fighting was near the mountains of Jabal al-Akrad, close to some of the highest peaks in Syria, including Nabi Younis that overlook Alawite villages and close to Qardaha, the hometown of the Assad family.

“The capture of the peaks would make the Alawite villages in our firing range,” said one rebel field commander from Ahrar al Sham based in Idlib on Skype.

In August 2013, Islamist rebels helped by foreign fighters were able to briefly capture villages populated by Assad’s Alawite minority.

Diplomats say rebels are trying to pressure the overstretched army on as many fronts as possible to force the overtaxed military to spread its resources ever more thinly.