BEIRUT: Syrian government forces seized territory in the Damascus suburb of Jobar Monday after fierce clashes that killed at least two officers and nine soldiers, a monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Observatory said regime forces, backed by Hezbollah fighters, managed to control several buildings in the area after nearly daylong clashes. It didn’t give a figure for the number of rebel fighters killed.

The rebel Rahman Legion posted several items of video footage purporting to show the bodies of the regime fighters killed during the army’s morning attack, identifying them as being from the elite 4th Armored Division.

Anti-government sources said the regime suffered 25 casualties and identified three officers among them, adding that a number of prisoners were also taken. The rebels also claimed they downed a MiG fighter with anti-aircraft fire, although the claim could not be confirmed. Some sources maintained that the plane was damaged and managed to land in the south of the country.

Anti-regime activists, meanwhile, accused the regime of using chlorine gas in a number of airstrikes that targeted Jobar and two nearby suburbs of the capital – Zamalka and Ain Tarma– as the clashes raged.

The Rahman Legion and allied rebel groups have been conducting hit-and-run attacks on regime forces in the Jobar area in recent days.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission said that at least 10 people were affected by the gas, but no fatalities were reported. The regime of President Bashar Assad has been accused of periodically using chlorine gas in air attacks on rebel-held territory during the course of the war.

During the fighting, regime forces pounded the town of Douma in the eastern Ghouta with airstrikes, and at least one surface-to-surface missile, killing eight people according to anti-regime media activists. At least 40 others were wounded in the strikes, which also caused several fires to break out, they said.

Rebel groups also targeted neighborhoods of Damascus with rockets and mortar bombs, killing two people, according to several sources.

The fatalities were reported in the eastern neighborhood of Zablatani, while neighborhoods from Mazzeh in the west to Bab Touma in the east were targeted, along with Abu Rummaneh in central Damascus.

Elsewhere, rebel groups in the north launched a new bid to seize regime-held territory in the province of Idlib and next-door Hama province, while fierce clashes between regime forces and rebel groups also raged in the city of Aleppo.