ISLAMIC State (Isis) forces seized control of Mahin in Syria’s central province of Homs yesterday after intensive clashes with government troops.

According to a spokesman, the terrorist army’s troops were pushing onward to the majority-Christian town of Sadad, which is home to the country’s Assyrian Christian minority and is where the ancient Aramaic language is still spoken.

Mahin is 15 miles east of the main road that links the central province to Damascus.

The town houses a large military complex and arms depots. It was the scene of intense clashes between government troops and al-Qaida’s Nusra Front affiliate in 2013 before the government recaptured it.

But yesterday’s capture of Mahin and the push toward Sadad mark a new Isis advance in central Syria.

The group’s strongholds lie in northern and eastern Syria, but it has as recently as May established a presence in Homs, seizing the city of Tadmur, the nearby ancient ruins of Palmyra and then another village to the west.

Isis has also made recent gains in Aleppo, seizing villages from other anti-government groups and controlling a section of a strategic road that serves as a supply route into government-controlled areas of Aleppo.

The group’s internet radio broadcast al-Bayan said that Isis had taken control of large arms depots in Mahin after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a government checkpoint outside the town, opening the way for fighters to advance.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported air strikes on Mahin after it fell under Isis control.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem commented that “important” points had been made during international talks in Vienna aimed at reviving a political process and ending the war.

He added, however, that negotiators had failed to convince his government’s enemies to curb their support for terrorism.

The anti-government Shaam news agency carried videos yesterday of what it said were government soldiers and female members of the Alawite religious minority locked in cages to be deployed as human shields in the streets of Douma against Syrian air force attacks.