At least 42 fighters were killed within 24 hours during fierce fighting between Islamist rebels and Daesh in Syria's Damascus province, the Agence France Presse reports.
"At least 30 Islamist rebels and 12 fighters from IS were killed in fighting since Tuesday" in the region of Qalamun, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated.
The western portion of Qalamun borders Lebanon and is largely under the control of the regime and its ally, Hezbollah.
The eastern sector has been the site of intense clashes between rebels and Daesh, both seeking to take the region for its strategic borders on the "badiya," the Syrian steppe.
Rebels use the planes to transport weapons from the Turkish border to the north and the Jordanian frontier in the south.
According to the Britain-based Observatory, Daesh has already intercepted one of these routes in an effort to "suffocate" the rebels.
In similar news, 13 civilians, including nine children, were killed Tuesday night by regime shelling in the northwest province of Idlib, whose provincial capital was overrun by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra and associated rebels.
Since they lost control of Idlib city, regime forces have been hitting opposition-controlled sections of the province to protect their supply route between Ariha and Jisr al-Shughur.
