Syrian govt has full control of Douma, say Russian agencies
BEIRUT/ MOSCOW: Syrian government forces have raised their flag over the last rebel bastion in eastern Ghouta, taking full control of the town of Douma as insurgents withdraw, Russian news agencies reported, sealing a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad.
Eastern Ghouta had been the biggest rebel stronghold near Damascus, but insurgent groups there surrendered after a series of ferocious government assaults aided by Russia following a massive bombardment.
The Jaish al-Islam group in Douma agreed on Sunday to withdraw, hours after a suspected chemical weapons attack on the town that has raised the prospect of US strikes.
“The raised state flag over a building in the town of Douma has heralded the control over this location and therefore over the whole of eastern Ghouta,” Major-General Yuri Yevtushenko, head of the Russian Peace and Reconciliation Centre in Syria, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies yesterday.
Russian military police were deployed in Douma yesterday in accordance with the rebel surrender deal, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Some 40,000 people, including thousands of rebels and their families, are leaving Douma for opposition areas in northern Syria under the agreement.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said that American missiles “will be coming” to Syria as he and other Western countries weigh military action over the suspected chemical attack.
Trump said on Twitter yesterday that a possible military strike against Syria “could be very soon or not so soon at all”.
Both Syria and Russia have said reports of the attack were fabricated by rebels and rescue workers in the town and have accused the US of seeking to use it as a pretext to attack the government.
Assad was quoted by state television yesterday as saying that the government’s battlefield victories led Western states to raise their voices, but any action they took would only destabilise the region. — Reuters