DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian government forces captured two villages near the border with Lebanon on Saturday, continuing a weeks-long advance that has cut a major supply route for weapons and fighters into the country from eastern Lebanon, said activists and state TV.

The villages of Flita and Ras Maara were the latest targets of a government offensive in the rugged Qalamoun border region after troops captured the town of Yabroud earlier this month. Tens of thousands of Syrians fled into Lebanon since the Qalamoun offensive began in November.

Flita, about five miles from the border with Lebanon, had been a major crossing point for rebels coming into Syria to fight President Bashar Assad’s forces.

It is part of the Qalamoun region, which holds strategic value for the government. It is situated along the main north-south highway that links the capital to government strongholds along the Mediterranean coast.

State TV said the villages fell after government forces “wiped out the last remnants of armed terrorist groups and destroyed its weapons and tools they used in their crimes.” The Syrian government refers to rebels as “terrorists.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also confirmed Syrian forces backed by fighters of the Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah seized the villages.

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah openly began waging war alongside Assad’s forces last year, allowing Syrian forces to regain swaths of territory lost to armed rebels since the uprising began three years ago.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said his fighters would remain in Syria for now.

Syria’s uprising, which began with largely peace protests in March 2011, has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones that has left more than 140,000 people dead.

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