End to siege of Syria regime towns

AL-EIS (Syria): Several thousand residents evacuated two pro-regime towns in northern Syria, putting an end to one of the longest sieges of the country’s seven-year civil war.

Fuaa and Kafraya in Idlib province were the last remaining areas under blockade in Syria and a rare example of pro-government towns surrounded by rebel forces.

The Syiah-majority towns were besieged for three years by rebels and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant alliance led by Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate.

Surrounded and bombed by hostile factions, the towns had become a rallying cry for the government and its ally Iran.

A deal was reached on Tuesday between regime-backer Russia and rebel-ally Turkey to see the resi- dents taken to government-held territory in exchange for the release of prisoners from regime jails.

On Wednesday morning, barricades on the road leading into the towns were removed to let dozens of buses in, a correspondent there said.

Just after midnight, the buses drove out of Fuaa and Kafraya and yesterday morning were at the village of Al-Eis, crossing from rebel-controlled territory into regime-held areas in Aleppo province.

Armed HTS fighters stood on the roadside as the convoy of evacuees inched past, with pro-government militiamen and regular civilians sitting solemnly on board and staring ahead.

Some 6,900 civilians and fighters were evacuated and the two towns were now “entirely empty of residents”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said yesterday.

“As the buses entered regimeheld areas, the regime started releasing detainees, as per the deal,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

According to HTS sources, the evacuation had been agreed in exchange for the release of 1,500 people from government-run jails.

A HTS source said the group’s fighters had entered the towns after the evacuation was complete.

Fuaa and Kafraya came under siege in 2015 as rebels and militants overran the surrounding province of Idlib, cutting off access to food and medicine.

— Reuters Move out: A fighter loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looking out of a partially damaged bus during evacuation of thousands of militiamen and civilians from Fuaa and Kafraya in Syria.