Israeli airstrike kills seven militants on Wednesday after Jordan pounds militants approaching its border a day earlier Daesh-linked militants are cornered by regime troops in battle to recapture south-west Syria LONDON: Daesh-linked militants fleeing an onslaught in south-west Syria were targeted in separate attacks by the Jordanian and Israeli militaries. Syrian government troops backed by Russia and Iranian proxies have recaptured large areas of territory near the Israeli occupied Golan Heights and Jordan as part of an operation to defeat rebel and extremist groups in the country’s south-west. As a result, militants have fled towards the borders with Israel and Jordan - country’s that are both deeply concerned about the proximity of the fighting to their territories. The Israeli military said on Thursday that an air strike killed seven militants linked to Daesh, who were seeking to infiltrate the country from the Syrian Golan Heights. The militants were hit by the missile strike late on Wednesday after they crossed a ceasefire line and came within a few hundred meters of the fence in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said. An Israeli aircraft “in searches that have been completed on the ground by Israeli troops we found seven bodies in that location, we found five AK-47 assault rifles, we found explosive vests as well as what appears to be grenades,” Conricus said. The spokesman said the Syrian offensive had resulted in Daesh-affiliated groups scattering in the area, AFP reported. He said Israeli forces believed they were on a “terrorist mission” and “trying to infiltrate into Israel.” “It did not seem as if they were fleeing, seeking refuge,” Conricus said. “It seems as if they were moving in a combat formation, with combat equipment.” He declined to say specifically where they were located, but said it was in the southern Golan, near the Jordanian border. Initial findings show they were linked to Daesh but Conricus did not say which faction they were from. He added there had been no coordination with Syria or Russia before the strike, adding that Israel was well within the bounds of a 1974 ceasefire agreement for the area in carrying it out. Meanwhile, the Jordanian army on Thursday said it had killed a number of Daesh militants who tried to approach its border with Syria. Jordanian troops prevented the extremists from reaching the frontier by pounding them “with all types of weapons” and “killing a number of them,” an army statement said. The operation to secure the area continued into Wednesday. On the Syrian side of the border, regime forces cornered the fighters in a pocket of southern Syria around the Yarmuk Basin and neighboring villages, the military said. On Tuesday, Syrian media and a war monitor reported heavy clashes between regime forces and and the extremists surrounded in a wedge of territory in southern Deraa province, AFP reported. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nearly 100 fighters from the Daesh-allied Army of Khaled BenAl-Walid were cornered in their last redoubt. The Yarmouk Basin area is near both the Jordanian border and the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan plateau. On Wednesday Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said in a message to his troops they were close to winning the country"s seven-year-war, telling them “victory is near”. Both Jordan and Israel are also deeply concerned about the presence of Iran-backed militias near their borders. The militias have played a key role in supporting Assad militarily. Israel has pledged to prevent Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria and a series of recent strikes that have killed Iranians there have been attributed to Israel. Confrontations with Daesh-linked fighters have been more rare. The only other similar incident since the start of Syria’s seven-year civil war occurred in November 2016, AFP reported. In that incident, the army said Israeli soldiers were targeted with machine gun fire and mortars and shot back. The air force then bombed the vehicle carrying the gunmen, identified as members of the Yarmouk Martyrs" Brigade, a Syrian rebel group that pledged allegiance to Daesh. Four of the militants were killed.