Assad's battlefield gains cast cloud on upcoming Syria talks

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian peace talks due next week are looking increasingly moot as a string of recent battlefield victories by government troops have bolstered President Bashar Assad's hand and plunged the rebels into disarray.

The government's advances add to the obstacles that have scuttled chances of halting - at least anytime soon - the five-year civil war that has killed a quarter of a million people, displaced half the country and enabled the radical Islamic State group to seize a third of Syria's territory.

A proxy war on the ground between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, disorganization among the rebels after a top commander and several other local leaders were killed, rigid and disparate U.S. and Russian positions regarding Assad's future, and a spat over which groups will be invited to the negotiating table have all added to the conflagration.

"I don't think we should expect any major results," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics. "Assad really believes that time is on his side, that he is winning, that the opposition is in tatters."