Russian military police and Syrian police into towns retaken by government forces, he said.

The regime has more than doubled the amount of territory it held in Daraa since escalating its military pressure.

On Saturday the regime retook eight towns under Russia-mediated deals.

State news agency SANA said Sunday the national flag had been hoisted in one of these towns, Dael, while Syrian state television showed images of people celebrating.

Regime forces have retaken large parts of the country lost to rebels since Russia intervened on its behalf in 2015.

The conflict has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Jo Swinson and her husband Duncan Hames were the subjects of a viral misleading story on Facebook

Misleading politics stories go viral online all the time. The action gets particularly frantic during an election campaign.

This is the story of how one tale - involving Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson and her husband Duncan Hames - became one of the most-shared politics stories in the first few days of 2019's battle, with a potential audience of more than 1.5 million people.

A BBC Trending investigation tracked down the people, from an Italian in North Wales to a barman in London, who exaggerated genuine facts and helped the story go viral via some of Britain's biggest political pages and groups on Facebook.

Multiple versions of the story