The Syrian Army has killed dozens of foreign-backed militants in a strategic suburb near the capital Damascus.

A monitoring group with close links to the militants told Reuters news agency that the Syrian Army had killed 49 insurgents near Adra on Sunday.

Adra lies on a route that the militants had been using to smuggle weapons into Damascus, but a few months ago government forces reestablished control over the town.

According to Syrian state media, the army “eliminated a large number of terrorists from Jabhat al-Nusra, some of them were foreigners,” in Adra on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Syrian forces also launched attacks against the militants in the governorates of Idlib, Daraya, Lattakia, Homs, Daraa, and Aleppo on Sunday and killed a large number of them.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to the UN, more than 90,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the violence.

Damascus says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

The Syrian government says the West and its regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- are supporting the militants.

The militants from a number of countries have been crossing into Syria to fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, contributing to an international effort to destabilize the Arab country.

Several international human rights organizations say the foreign-sponsored militants have committed war crimes in Syria.

The Syrian troops have recently conducted successful clean-up operations across the country, inflicting heavy losses on Takfiri extremists.

The Syrian Army’s push against the militants rattled their foreign sponsors.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said on June 26 that Saudi Arabia is trembling with fear because of the Syrian Army’s recent successes against the militants.

In a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jeddah, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal insisted on June 25 that the militants in Syria must be armed with anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.

Zoubi said that the Saudi weapons and money is the main reason behind bloodshed in Syria, adding that Faisal “is lost in the Syrian blood.”/HK