Regime regains full control of central Syria
THE Syrian government retook full control of central Syria yesterday as rebels and their relatives were evacuated from final pockets of territory still outside the regime’s grasp.
The evacuations from areas straddling the boundary between Homs and Hama provinces came under a deal between rebel factions and the government.
Hundreds of people gathered in the centre of the town of Rastan in Homs province to welcome the return of government security forces and attend a flag-raising ceremony on the main square.
Nearby towns and villages in the areas of Talbiseh and Al-Hula had also been evacuated, the official Sana news agency and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
“The last convoy of terrorists and their families exits northern Homs province and southern Hama province,” Sana reported.
The armed factions, which the government systematically refers to as terrorists, were transferred to Idlib province, which still largely escapes regime control.
A total of 34 500 people – armed men and their families – were transferred out of the area as part of the deal, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
The province’s governor, Talal Barazai, said: “As of today, there is not one gunman left, no weapons left in the whole of Homs province.”
Pockets of Islamic State jihadists are, however, thought to be active still on the province’s scarcely populated far eastern edge.
The governor vowed the Damascus-Hama highway would reopen in the coming days.
Meanwhile, global arms experts confirmed yesterday that chlorine was used in a Syrian town in February, leaving residents fighting for breath, as the world awaits the results of a probe into last month’s alleged poison gas attack on Douma.
A fact-finding mission by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons determined that “chlorine was released from cylinders by mechanical impact in the Al Talil neighbourhood of Saraqeb” on February 4.