Beirut: Syrian regime forces on Monday resumed their offensive against Daesh in the south of Damascus, after evacuating a group of civilians from the area, regime TV reported.

The TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying a truce had been in place to evacuate women, children and elderly on Sunday night from Damascus’ southern neighbourhood of Hajar Al Aswad.

Shortly before noon Monday, when the truce was supposed to end, regime warplanes struck Daesh held areas as Syrian regime troops began pounding and advancing slowly in the remaining Daesh-held neighbourhoods in Damascus, according to state TV.

Damascus residents said warplanes were flying over the city again. The fighting resumed in the Hajar Al Aswad neighbourhood and the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group, said some Daesh terrorists were permitted to leave Yarmouk and the adjacent Al Tadamon neighbourhood. Regime media denied a deal was reached to evacuate fighters.

The Observatory said on Monday that a new batch of terrorists and their families left late Sunday, heading east towards the Syrian Desert. It added that Daesh terrorists have been setting their offices and vehicles on fire so that government forces would not be able to seize equipment or documents belonging to the group.

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s forces launched an offensive against Daesh in southern Damascus a month ago. The offensive has brought more than 70 per cent of the area under regime control.

The capture of these southern neighbourhoods would bring the entire Syrian capital under regime control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.

In Tehran, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman said Iranian forces will not be leaving Syria but would continue fighting “terrorism” there, at the request of the Syrian government.

Bahram Ghasemi told reporters Monday that no one can force Tehran to do anything it doesn’t desire to do.

“Our presence in Syria has been based on request by Syrian government and Iran will continue its support as long as the Syrian government wants,” he said.

Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said on Friday that the Russian president’s statement about the need for foreign troop pullout from Syria referred to Iran, Al Assad’s key regional ally.

Putin told Al Assad during a meeting on Thursday that a political settlement in Syria should encourage foreign countries to pull out their troops from Syria.

Russia and Iran have been Al Assad’s strongest backers and have joined the war on his side.