Syria's army has issued orders to return home for men conscripted for compulsory service in 2010, the year before war broke out, fighters and local media said Saturday.

The decision ends the drawn-out deployment of thousands of Syrians who enlisted for the mandatory 18 months of military service in 2010, but who ended up serving for eight years because of the war.

Al-Watan, a Syrian daily close to the government, reported that the army had "issued a decision to demobilise the officers and reservists of Recruitment Class 102 as of June 1, 2018".

The decision comes in the wake of a string of military gains around the capital Damascus and in the central province of Homs.

Mohammad, 27, has been serving for eight consecutive years after enlisting in 2010, but will finally go home next month.

"I feel like I just won a huge battle," said Mohammad, who hails from Syria's second city Aleppo.

"I called my family this morning and told my mom to congratulate me as I'd been discharged. She was surprised and didn't know what to say," he told AFP from Damascus, where he is now deployed.

Before Syria's conflict erupted in 2011, men 18 and older had to serve between 18 months and two years in the armed forces, after which they remained part of the reserves.

But when war broke out, anyone enlisted remained deployed on active duty.

The regime initially lost swathes of territory and its 300,000-strong army was nearly halved by deaths, injuries and defections.

Russian air strikes, local militiamen and fighters from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere have helped it recapture much of the territory it lost.

Mohammad was expecting to serve until 2012, but ended up fighting for years longer along several fronts, including the Eastern Ghouta rebel bastion outside Damascus.

"We've been dreaming of this moment for a long time, and now the dream has become reality," he said.

Syrian state media did not report the decision, while local outlets did not specify how many troops it would impact.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor estimated that nearly 15,000 soldiers and reservists would be affected.

Cario gets 7 Egyptians out of Syria-controlled shelters
Cairo (AFP) May 26, 2018 –

The Egyptian foreign ministry said on Saturday its embassy in Syria had been able to get seven Egyptians out of shelters in areas now controlled by the Syrian government.

The embassy had cooperated with the Syrian authorities to secure their release from camps where thousands of civilians fleeing the Eastern Ghouta Damascus suburb were now staying.

One citizen was able to leave one of the shelters on Saturday, while another Egyptian, his mother, his sister, and his Syrian wife and children were able to leave another shelter the same day.

The ministry said preparations were underway to fly them home.

The embassy was able to rescue another Egyptian family "from the area of military operations in Ghouta a few weeks ago," the ministry said.

Syria's regime lost swathes of territory to rebels early in the uprising but has since made a comeback and recaptured large parts of the country.

It used military pressure and population transfers to flush fighters and civilians out of territory around Damascus, most notably the Eastern Ghouta suburb.

The assault on Eastern Ghouta has a sparked a mass exodus from the shrinking rebel enclave, with 50,000 people reaching shelters in regime-controlled areas in the past week, according to the United Nations.

The UN humanitarian coordinator in Syria in March condemned the "tragic" living conditions of the displaced massed in the makeshift shelters.

Prior to the assault, Ghouta's 400,000 residents had suffered five years of crippling regime siege that made food and medicine nearly impossible to access or afford.

Syria's conflict broke out in March 2011 with protests against the government but has since evolved into a civil war that has killed more than 350,000 people and triggered a staggering humanitarian crisis.