ALL SET FOR SYRIA REBELS; CIVVIES LEAVE

Buses meant to take rebels, civilians out of Aleppo are standing by

BEIRUT—The warring sides in Syria confirmed yesterday that the evacuation of rebel fighters and thousands of civilians from the last sliver of the besieged eastern city of Aleppo is imminent, with a Syrian army official saying all is ready for them to leave “at any moment.”

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said overnight negotiations had reinforced a ceasefire deal to allow the rebels and civilians to leave the besieged last rebel holdout in Aleppo.

The evacuations were back on track after a ceasefire deal, mediated by Ankara and Moscow, unraveled amid fighting on Wednesday.

Shiite Hezbollah militiamen are fight- ing in the Syrian civil war on the side of President Bashar Assad’s forces.

The handover of Aleppo’s remaining opposition-run neighborhoods to government control would be a turning point in Syria’s civil war, allowing Assad control of most of the country’s urban centers.

Fight stoppage

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting that scuttled on Wednesday’s truce stopped in the city around 4 a.m. Thursday.

Meanwhile, the pan-Arab TV station Al-Mayadeen broadcast live from the Ramouseh crossing point on the southern edge of Aleppo, where ambulances belonging to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were on hand, parked and waiting to evacuate the wounded and sick Syrians.

A green-colored government bus was also seen in the footage.

The evacuation, which is part of an agreement between rebels and the Syrian government for the pullout from opposition-held neighborhoods of fighters and civilians, is effectively Aleppo’s surrender to the government.

The rebels have held to the eastern part of the city for four years but their enclave rapidly evaporated in the past days and weeks in the face of a fierce Syrian government onslaught.

The Russian military, a staunch Assad ally, said 20 buses and 10 ambulances would take the rebels to the rebel-held areas in the province of Idlib yesterday.

The military’s Center for Reconciliation said it was preparing for the rebels exit together with the Syrian government and the government in Damascus had given security guarantees to all rebels willing to leave Aleppo.

The Russian military was monitoring the situation using drones, it said.

A previous attempt to arrange a rebel withdrawal failed Wednesday when a ceasefire deal between the rebels and the government collapsed, with both sides blaming each other for its failure.

The evacuation was to have begun at dawn on Wednesday, but quickly derailed, descending into terrifying violence.

Residents said government buses arrived in the pre-dawn hours at agreed upon meeting points, where the wounded were first in line to be evacuated after surviving weeks of intense fighting amid destroyed medical facilities and depleted supplies.

But they were turned away by Shiite pro-government militias manning the checkpoints.