Sbeineh , Syria ( CNN ) -- Sbeineh was once a thriving town on the southern outskirts of Damascus . Residents of the Syrian capital came to buy their furniture here and many factories , now abandoned , still line the main street into town . But the grinding , two-and-a-half-year war here has reduced Sbeineh to rubble . Its residents first fled when the town fell into the hands of rebels battling to bring an end to the reign of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad . But in early November the Syrian army reclaimed Sbeineh after a long and costly siege . The military pounded rebel positions with tanks , artillery and heavy machine guns for weeks in the lead-up to the siege . Assad 's men then raided the town , taking it back house by house . Various opposition groups that had occupied Sbeineh blamed each other for losing the battle , saying some rebel fighters had put up very little resistance against government troops . We toured the destroyed town with a detachment from the Syrian army led by a soldier who goes by the name of Abu Aksam . `` Is this their freedom ? '' Abu Aksam said , walking past a pock-marked building . `` Everything is broken . '' The soldiers walked us through a block of interconnected houses , where the rebels who occupied Sbeineh for nearly a year punched holes through the walls in order to move safely from apartment to apartment , rather than fall prey to a sniper 's scope out in the streets . Government soldiers also uncovered a series of tunnels that the rebels were using to get supplies towards the front line . In one apartment we find a huge hole in the ground leading down to a tunnel used to smuggle weapons and ammunition to a sniper 's vantage point at the other end . `` Our soldiers took heavy casualties from this position , '' Abu Aksam said . `` It was very difficult to get this done , but we did it , and we will keep going until the end because we believe in our country . '' Syrian troops showed us various locations in Sbeineh they claim served as headquarters for rebel groups ranging from the moderate Free Syrian Army to the Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra . Aksam also took us to a room that he says served as weapons-manufacturing workshop for opposition fighters . Aksam says rebels used these improvised mini-factories to make mortars , rockets and improvised bombs . `` They used the tools to make mortars and rockets and used gas cylinders to make very large bombs , '' he said , standing amid the debris inside the room . The government says Sbeineh was vital for resupplying its fighters in the southern outskirts of Damascus . Losing areas around the capital dealt a heavy blow to the Syrian regime 's efforts to win the war , and the government has made it a priority to take the suburbs back . The Syrian army 's victory at Sbeineh was a strategic triumph for the government as it tries to unseat rebels from the large swaths of territory they 've taken east and south of the capital . But while the soldiers rejoice at their hard-fought win , the real losers are the citizens of this once vibrant suburb who wo n't be able to return any time soon . Read more : Front line battles take Syria 's suburbs back to 'stone age ' Read more : Suicide bombing in central Damascus kills four .
Reclaiming southern , eastern suburbs of Damascus from rebels is Syrian regime priority . Syrian troops retook Sbeineh from opposition fighters after brutal siege in November . Government says Sbeineh was key supply line to other suburbs for opposition troops .