Insurgents seized a strategic town from Syrian government forces and their allies in the western coastal province of Latakia on Friday, a monitoring group and the rebels said, in a rare advance for them in the area.
The Syrian government forces had captured Kansaba in February, part of a wider advance in Latakia's northern countryside at the time, backed by Russian air power.
Fighting picked up again in the area after a ceasefire deal later that month brought a temporary lull. The truce has mostly unravelled throughout areas where it took effect in the west of the country.
The al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front was among the groups that retook Kansaba -- which had previously been an important base for the insurgents.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was part of a wider offensive launched earlier in the week.
It was a rare gain for rebels in Latakia since Russia intervened in the five-year Syrian conflict on the side of President Bashar al-Assad last September.