President Bashar al-Assad's troops have driven rebel fighters out of his Latakia home province as UN inspectors begin probing the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict.
As the UN team left their Damascus hotel for an undisclosed destination, Jordan said it was receiving US technical assistance to prepare for any possible chemical warfare in neighbouring Syria.
On the diplomatic front, top Russian and US officials are to meet in The Hague next week to discuss preparations for a long-delayed international peace conference on the 29-month-old conflict, Russia's deputy foreign minister said.
Syria's state news agency SANA, meanwhile, said the army recaptured a swathe of territory in northern Latakia, a province on the Mediterranean coast, including a remote mountainous region where rebels launched operations earlier this month.
Rebels positioned in remote enclaves in Latakia's mountains launched the "battle for the liberation of the Syrian coast" about two weeks ago.
Latakia is the ancestral land of the Assad clan and the hinterland of his minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Over the past two weeks, rebel forces - mostly from Syria's Sunni majority - had seized several Alawite villages near Qardaha, hometown of Assad's late father and long-time president Hafez al-Assad who is also buried there.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the army had retaken nine villages and military checkpoints.
The frontlines have stabilised in recent months, with Assad's troops controlling the centre and the west, while rebels are deployed in swathes of the north and east.
Southern Syria remains disputed, while parts of the north have witnessed the opening of a new front as Kurdish fighters seek to establish an autonomous area.
Fighting in the north has triggered a new exodus of refugees with at least 15,000 Syrians pouring into Iraq in recent days.
