WASHINGTON - The US has warned Damascus it will take "firm" action if the regime of Bashar al-Assad violates a ceasefire deal, after Syrian aircraft dropped leaflets on a southern province ahead of an expected offensive.

Residents of Daraa told AFP Friday that several different leaflets were scattered across the province, which has borders with Israel and Jordan and is expected to be among the next targets in the resurgent regime's reconquest.

One of them, seen by a journalist contributing to AFP in the city of Daraa, includes a picture showing lined up bodies, presumably of anti-government fighters.

"This is the inevitable fate of anyone who insists on carrying arms," reads the leaflet.

The US State Department issued a statement late Friday saying it was "concerned" by the reports and that the area in question was within the boundaries of a de-escalation zone it had negotiated with Russia and Jordan last year. "We also caution the Syrian regime against any actions that risk broadening the conflict or jeopardize the ceasefire," said spokeswoman Heather Nauert, adding that the ceasefire had been re-affirmed by President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Vietnam in November.

"As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations," she added.

Syrian regime and allied forces on Monday retook the Yarmuk area in southern Damascus, giving President Bashar al-Assad full control of the capital and its surroundings for the first time since 2012. Daraa's location makes any broad operation there very sensitive, with Israel suspecting Damascus' Iranian allies of seeking to establish a military footprint closer to its borders. Government and allied forces control about 30 percent of Daraa, the rest of which is held by various factions, including a small contingent of fighters from the Islamic State jihadist group.

Syrian army allows pre-2011 conscripts to return home

Syria's army has issued orders to return home for men conscripted for compulsory service in 2010, the year before war broke out, fighters and local media said Saturday. The decision ends the drawn-out deployment of thousands of Syrians who enlisted for the mandatory 18 months of military service in 2010, but who ended up serving for eight years because of the war. Al-Watan, a Syrian daily close to the government, reported that the army had "issued a decision to demobilise the officers and reservists of Recruitment Class 102 as of June 1, 2018".

The decision comes in the wake of a string of military gains around the capital Damascus and in the central province of Homs. Mohammad, 27, has been serving for eight consecutive years after enlisting in 2010, but will finally go home next month. "I feel like I just won a huge battle," said Mohammad, who hails from Syria's second city Aleppo.

"I called my family this morning and told my mom to congratulate me as I'd been discharged. She was surprised and didn't know what to say," he told AFP from Damascus, where he is now deployed.

Before Syria's conflict erupted in 2011, men 18 and older had to serve between 18 months and two years in the armed forces, after which they remained part of the reserves.

But when war broke out, anyone enlisted remained deployed on active duty.

The regime initially lost swathes of territory and its 300,000-strong army was nearly halved by deaths, injuries and defections.

Russian air strikes, local militiamen and fighters from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere have helped it recapture much of the territory it lost.

Mohammad was expecting to serve until 2012, but ended up fighting for years longer along several fronts, including the Eastern Ghouta rebel bastion outside Damascus.

"We've been dreaming of this moment for a long time, and now the dream has become reality," he said.

Syrian state media did not report the decision, while local outlets did not specify how many troops it would impact.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor estimated that nearly 15,000 soldiers and reservists would be affected.

 

Masked attackers kill five rescuers

Five Syrian rescue workers were killed in an attack by masked assailants Saturday on one of their centres in the northern province of Aleppo, the White Helmets said.

The White Helmets said armed men stormed the Al-Hader centre in a pre-dawn attack and fired on the first responders inside.

Four volunteers were killed on the spot and a fifth died later in hospital, it wrote on Twitter.

Founded in 2013, the White Helmets are a network of first responders who rescue wounded in the aftermath of air strikes, shelling or blasts in rebel-held territory.

The Al-Hader centre lies in a part of Aleppo province controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist organisation whose main component was once Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.

"At around 2:00 am, an armed group stormed the Al-Hader centre, blindfolded the staff members who were on the night shift, and killed five of them," said Ahmad al-Hamish, who heads the centre.

"Two others were wounded and another two were able to flee. The attackers were masked and escaped after stealing some equipment and generators," he said.

It was unclear whether the attack was a robbery-gone-wrong or if the centre and its crew had been specifically targeted.

More than 200 White Helmets rescuers have been killed in Syria's seven-year war, usually in bombing raids or shelling on their centres.

While attacks like the one on Saturday are rare, they have happened before.

In August, seven White Helmets members were killed in a similar attack in the town of Sarmin, in neighbouring Idlib province.

Most of Idlib is held by HTS, as well as a part of Aleppo and the adjacent province of Hama.

Tensions are on the rise there, with a wave of intra-opposition assassinations and clashes leaving at least 20 rebels dead in 48 hours, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"You cannot separate the Al-Hader incident from the assassinations and other killings that have been happening more and more in recent weeks in areas under HTS control," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

The population of Idlib province has swelled to more than two million people as a result of massive transfers of rebels and civilians from onetime opposition zones elsewhere in the country.

The killings come as the White Helmets are facing a "freeze" on funding from the United States, which is still reviewing over $200 million earmarked for stabilisation in Syria.