BEIRUT: In a deeply unusual move, leaders of Assad’s Alawite sect in the country released a document that distanced themselves from his regime.

Those behind the text said Alawites were not members of a branch of Shia Islam — as they have been described in the past by Shia clerics — and that they were committed to “the fight against sectarian strife,” BBC reported.

Meanwhile, Syrian forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, drove Daesh militants out of the town of Al-Qaryatain on Sunday after gradually encircling it over the past few days, state media said.

Surrounded by hills, Al-Qaryatain is 100 km west of the ancient city of Palmyra, which government forces recaptured from Daesh last Sunday.

Al-Qaryatain had been held by the militant group since late August. Syria has been trying to retake Al-Qaryatain and other pockets of Daesh control to reduce the militant group’s ability to project military power into the heavily populated western region of Syria, where Damascus and other main cities are located.

Syrian state television said the army and its allies “fully restored security and stability to Al-Qaryatain after killing the last remaining groups of Daesh terrorists” in the town.

Government forces entered the town from a number of directions, Syrian media said. A Syrian military source told SANA state news agency the army had cleared areas northwest of the town of explosives planted by Daesh.

Militants retreating from Palmyra laid thousands of mines which the Syrian Army is now clearing before civilians can return.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had taken over half the town and that fierce fighting continued between Assad’s troops and Daesh rebels to the north and southeast of Al-Qaryatain.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the five-year-old Syrian conflict through a network of sources on the ground, said more than 40 air strikes by Russian and Syrian planes hit areas near the town on Sunday.

Daesh still has complete control over the city of Raqqa, its de facto capital, and it controls most of Deir Al-Zor province in eastern Syria, which borders Iraq.