Moscow: A former Russian prime minister who recently met Bashar Al Assad said the Syrian president told him that much of the fighting in the country’s civil war would be over by the end of the year, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Monday.

Russia has been Al Assad’s most powerful supporter during the three-year conflict that activists say has killed more than 150,000 people, blocking Western and Arab efforts to drive him from power.

Sergei Stepashin, who served as prime minister in 1999 under then-President Boris Yeltsin and now heads a charitable organisation, met Al Assad in Damascus last week during a visit to the Middle East, according to Russian news reports.

“To my question about how military issues were going, this is what [Al] Assad said: ‘This year the active phase of military action in Syria will be ended. After that we will have to shift to what we have been doing all the time — fighting terrorists’,” state-run Itar-Tass quoted Stepashin as saying.

Stepashin said they had also discussed economic cooperation between Syria and Russia, Itar-Tass reported.

Russia joined the United States in organising peace talks that began in January in Geneva between Al Assad’s government and its foes. But no agreement was reached and it appears unlikely a new round will start anytime soon, in part because of high tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

Al Assad has lost control of large swathes of northern and eastern Syria to Islamist rebels and foreign jihadis. But his forces, backed by militant group Hezbollah and other allies, have driven rebels back from around Damascus and secured most of central Syria.

The head of Hezbollah said in an interview published on Monday that Al Assad would stand for re-election this year and that he no longer faced a threat of being overthrown.

Hassan Nasrallah said Syria’s regime is no longer in danger of being toppled and the risk of the country being divided has passed.

Nasrallah’s comments to the Al Safir daily come as his Shiite movement is increasingly involved in the conflict in neighbouring Syria, where they are fighting alongside President Bashar Al Assad’s forces.

Nasrallah denied Hezbollah’s role in Syria was unpopular in Lebanon, and said the group’s recent battle in Syria’s Qalamun had lessened the risks of bomb blasts back home.

“In my opinion, the phase of bringing down the regime or bringing down the state is over,” he told the newspaper in an interview.

“I think we have passed the danger of division” of the country, he added. “They cannot overthrow the regime, but they can wage a war of attrition,” the Hezbollah chief said.

Nasrallah also said he believed supporters of the uprising were tempering their expectations for an opposition defeat of the regime.

“The regional and international situation has changed,” he said. “In my view, the pressure on the regime in the coming phase will be less than in the past three years, in terms of political pressure, media pressure and pressure on the ground.”

Meanwhile, at least 20 rebels were killed by the army in the northern part of the capital Damascus on Monday, media reported.

Syrian troops eliminated 20 rebels in the industrial city of Adra, north of Damascus, while they were attempting to flee toward the Dumair suburb of Damascus, Xinhua reported citing Sana news agency.

This is the latest in a string of successful military operations the Syrian troops have carried out during which dozens of rebels have been killed over the past few days.

The Syrian forces also ambushed another militant group between the towns of Ein Al Hasan and Al Saen, east of the central city of Homs on Monday, killing and wounding more than 20 of them.

The death toll in Sunday’s Syrian military ambush against rebels rose to 63 in the Jouret Al Shaiah area of Homs, including field commanders of the rebels.

Syrian troops have recently recaptured several villages and towns in central Syria, cutting off the main supply routes of rebels from neighbouring Lebanon.

The army also tightened the noose around armed groups in the countryside of Damascus and blocked several attempts to storm the capital.

The army’s offensive and its tightening blockade of some hotspots prompted the rebels to intensify their mortar attacks on safe areas in Damascus, presumably to shift the government’s attention and alleviate pressure on tense areas.