Forces of the Bashar Assad regime on Monday escalated their attacks on the Daraa al-Balad neighborhood in southwestern Syria, bombing a local mosque in their attempt to wrest control of the city center.

Clashes broke out between opposition forces in the neighborhood and the regime, Eymen Ebu Nokta, spokesperson of the Horan Freedoms Community, a group founded by activists and journalists from Daraa, told Anadolu Agency (AA).

Ebu Nokta said the regime forces targeted the al-Mansur Mosque in Daraa al-Balad.

Regime forces also bombed the Sa'd Bin Abi Vakkas and Doctor Ghassan Aba Zayd mosques in the neighborhood over the past month, he added.

Locals in the northern and western countryside of Daraa province targeted Bashar al-Assad regime's road checkpoint with light weapons in order to show their support for Daraa al-Balad, said Ebu Nokta.

Daraa, regarded as the birthplace of Syria's 2011 uprising and held for years by opposition forces, was returned to regime control in 2018 under a previous Moscow-backed ceasefire that had allowed rebels to stay in some areas of the province.

But since late July local armed groups have exchanged artillery fire with regime forces and the regime has imposed a crippling siege on Daraa's southern district of Daraa al-Balad, seen as a hub for former opposition forces.

Last week, the opposition began evacuating Daraa al-Balad as part of a new Russian-brokered truce agreement, but new clashes have significantly undermined the deal, with battles raging in several parts of the province on Monday.

The United Nations said last week that the latest escalation had forced some 38,000 people to flee over the past month.