Israel and Jordan said on Thursday that their forces had killed Islamic State (IS) insurgents who approached their borders after being squeezed out of southwestern Syria by the army of President Bashar al-Assad.
In a nod to his battlefield gains, Israel described victory by Assad, who is on a last push to restore his rule after more than seven years of civil war, as a fait accompli that could calm the Golan Heights.
Meanwhile, in a major change to the pre-conflict 2011 status quo, Russian military police began deploying on the Syrian-held Golan and planned to set up eight observation posts in the area, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said.
After weeks of intensive Russian-backed bombing, Syrian forces have seized back territory once controlled by a group affiliated to Islamic State known as the Khaled Bin Walid Army.
The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike on the Golan on Wednesday, killing seven insurgents en route to attack an Israeli target. Separately, the Jordan military said it had clashed with encroaching Khaled Bin Walid fighters between Tuesday and Wednesday, killing an unspecified number.
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman sounded more upbeat on Thursday as he described an Assad win as a given.
"From our perspective, the situation is returning to how it was before the civil war, meaning there is a real address, someone responsible, and central rule," he told reporters, referring to a decades-old stand-off between Israel and Syria.
In Moscow, the Russian Defence Ministry said its deployment of military police on the Syrian-held Golan was aimed at supporting a decades-old UN peacekeeper presence.
It said the new Russian posts would be handed over to the Syrian government once the situation had stabilised.
Lieberman said that for there to be long-term quiet between Israel and Syria, Assad must abide by a 1974 UN-monitored armistice that set up demilitarised zones on the Golan.
But Lieberman reiterated Israel's demand that Iran not set up military bases against it in Syria, nor that Syria be used to smuggle arms to Hezbollah guerillas in neighbouring Lebanon.
