For its part, government forces had been using the nearby highway to link Damascus with the central Homs province and had multiple weapons depots in the area.

[39] The Air Force carried out several raids on al-Qalamoun and Yabrud mountains, as pro-government press sources claimed that the Army controlled large parts of Qara.

[41] Middle East security officials stated there were few signs yet of a massive Syrian armour build-up needed for an all-out assault on Qalamoun.

After the Saudi bombers exploded, five rebel fighters entered the hospital in an attempt to destroy medical equipment and kidnap a wounded Army officer and the Ikhbariya al-Suriya television crew.

[48][49] On 22 November, rebel forces, led by militants from ISIL and Al-Nusra Front, mostly seized the largely Christian town of Deir Attiyeh.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Health Minister, Saad al-Nayef, accused the rebels of committing a "massacre" in Deir Attiyeh, killing "five doctors, five nurses and two ambulance drivers.

[60] A military source stated that if the town would to be captured, the Army would be left with only Yabrud and some other villages to take in order to completely block off the border with Lebanon.

[64] In the early hours of the next day, the rebels broke into the town and captured the Mar Takla convent in the western part of Maaloula.

[66] On 2 December, the rebels moved into the center of Maaloula, after sending explosive-filled tires hurtling down from positions in the cliffs above the town on security forces deployed there.

[74] On 6 December, government forces reportedly killed at least 18 people, including children, in an underground shelter in the government-held Al-Fattah district of An-Nabk.

[79] On 10 December, the Army took full control of An-Nabk,[80] with fighting continuing in its outskirts[81] as a pocket of rebel resistance in a small area east of the town remained.

[85] Early on 21 December, Hezbollah forces ambushed a group of Al-Nusra Front rebels on the Lebanese side of the border in Wadi al-Jamala, on the outskirts of Nahle, a mountainous area opposite the Qalamoun region.

During this time, the Reema Farms had been witnessing violent clashes between the Army and the rebels, while the military captured the hills around Al-Neaymat and Al-Abboudieh, along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

[95] The next day, according to the pro-government al-Watan newspaper, the Army captured the town of Sahel, the al-Arid road, Qamieh and al-Kornish areas surrounding Yabrud.

[100] On 27 February, the pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported that the Army captured two strategic hills near Yabrud that were being used by the rebels as supply routes.

[102] On 3 March, according to the Iranian Al-Alam news network, government forces recaptured Sahel and the previous day, the Army reportedly captured the strategic Al-Kuwaiti hill.

[107] One of the killed rebels was Hussein Mohammad Ammoun, who orchestrated a car bomb plot involving a female terrorism suspect in Lebanon the previous month.

[122] On 11 March, after almost a month of fighting, government forces captured the Rima Farms region, positioning themselves directly facing Yabrud.

[123][124] On 14 March, Hezbollah fighters approached Yabroud from the west as a diversion while Army troops attacked from the east, with fire support provided to both forces.

[126] During this time, Hezbollah commandos conducted a raid in which they killed 13 rebel leaders,[22][127] including the Kuwaiti Al-Nusra Qalamoun deputy commander, Abu Azzam al-Kuwaiti.

[129] Government forces started entering Yabroud from the east and advanced along the town's main street, while rebels were retreating towards Rankous.

[128] The lack of resistance raised suspicions that the rebel group in charge of defending the hill made a deal with government forces.

On 16 March, Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah fighters, captured most, if not all, of Yabroud, after entering the eastern part of the town the previous night.

As the Army was moving into Yabroud, the Air Force fired four rockets near the barren hills of Arsal, possibly targeting smugglers supplying rebels in the area.

[143] By the evening, opposition forces completely withdrew from the area and headed towards the surrounding western villages, particularly the plains of the nearby city of Rankus.

[145] On 17 March, the Lebanese army sent commandos to the border area with Syria, as Syrian rebels continued to flee into Lebanon after the fall of Yabrud.

[147] According to a Syrian Army source, 1,400 rebels from the FSA, Ahrar al-Sham and other groups had fled Yabrud in the previous two days, while 1,000 militants from the Al-Nusra Front remained to fight in the town, but they also eventually retreated.

[155] On 19 March, the rebel's central front in the mountains appeared to be collapsing as the Army captured Ras al-Ain, after two days of fighting.

[170] Later, the Fars News Agency reported the military managed to capture al-Sarkha and thus had broken through the rebel's first line of defense of Rankus.

On 19 August, a senior figure in the Islamic State, who had organised car and suicide bombings across Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, was killed.