Damascus, January 29 (RHC)-- Syrian army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied popular defense groups, have liberated two villages from the grips of foreign-backed Takfiri militants in the country’s northwestern Aleppo Province.

An unidentified military source said on Thursday that the army troops and allied forces managed to restore security and stability to Aleppo’s Balouzeh village. The source told Syria’s news agency SANA later in the day that another village in Aleppo Province, came under the Syrian army’s control.

Army units targeted gatherings of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists and destroyed their weapons, ammunition and machine-gun equipped vehicles during operations across Aleppo.

Elsewhere in Syria, the army inflicted heavy losses on different Takfiri terror groups, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and the so-called Jund al-Aqsa terror group in the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Dara’a.

The recent advances of the Syrian forces against Daesh and other terrorist groups have been expedited by the air cover provided by Russia, which began on September 30, 2015, at the request of the Damascus government.