DAMASCUS: President Bashar Assad’s troops drove rebel fighters out of his Latakia  home province Monday as U.N.  inspectors began probing the alleged use of  chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict.

As the U.N. team left their Damascus  hotel for an undisclosed destination, Jordan  said it was receiving U.S. technical  assistance to prepare for any possible chemical warfare in neighbouring  Syria.

On the diplomatic front, top Russian and U.S. officials are to meet in The  Hague next week to discuss preparations for a long-delayed international peace  conference on the 29-month-old conflict, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov  said.

Syrian state news agency SANA, meanwhile, said the army recaptured territory  in northern Latakia, including a remote mountainous region where rebels launched  operations this month.

“The army retook control of the Nabi Ashia mountain range and adjoining areas  in the north of Latakia province,” SANA  quoted a military source as saying.

Rebels in remote enclaves in Latakia’s mountains launched an offensive in the  region about two weeks ago.

Over the past two weeks, rebel forces – mostly from Syria’s Sunni majority –  seized several Alawite villages near Qardaha, hometown of Assad’s late father  and longtime president Hafez Assad  who is also buried there.

The Syrian Observatory  for Human Rights confirmed the  army retook nine villages and military checkpoints set up by rebels in the  area.

“The army has made progress” in Latakia, said the Britain-based group, which  relies on a network of medics and activists on the ground.

But a Syrian security source told AFP  the army had yet to recapture the Salma  region bordering Turkey that has been in rebel hands since late last year.

A team of more than 10 inspectors arrived in Damascus Sunday to begin their  hard-won mission, which U.N. officials have said will last two weeks.

They were not in their hotel Monday, an AFP journalist at the scene said. The  U.N. spokesman in Syria, Khaled al-Masri, and security officials refused to  elaborate on where they had gone.

The inspectors are expected to travel to Khan al-Assal in the northern  province of Aleppo, where the regime and rebels accuse each other of using  chemical weapons on March 19.They are also expected to investigate Otaibeh near  Damascus, where an attack was reported in March, and Homs, where chemical  weapons are suspected to have been used on Dec. 23.

The mission had been repeatedly delayed over differences with Assad’s regime  concerning the scope of the probe into the alleged use of chemical arms.

Syria  last year admitted having chemical weapons  but said it would never turn them against its own people.

The U.N. mission was cautiously welcomed by the opposition Syrian National  Coalition, which stressed that inspectors “must go to all areas where there have  been [chemical] attacks.”

“Although the Coalition trusts the mission’s impartiality, it will be  difficult for it to reach real results, because the regime is known for  manipulating evidence,” a statement said.

Across the border in Jordan, Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur  said the United States  was helping Amman to prepare for  any chemical warfare.

“We are ready for the possibilities of chemical wars. U.N. investigators are  in Syria now, so apparently there are chemical weapons,” Nsur told reporters.  “U.S. teams are helping Jordan with this. They provide training and other things  should something happen, God forbid.”