Syrian regime strikes deal for rebels to leave southern Damascus
The Syrian government and rebels have reached a deal to evacuate opposition fighters from an area of southern Damascus near the site of a regime offensive against extremists, state media said yesterday.
The announcement comes more than a week into a regime assault to oust ISIS fighters from the capital’s southern suburbs, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.
The state news agency Sana yesterday said a deal had been reached to allow opposition fighters and their families to leave rebel-held areas east of Yarmouk.
Sana reported “an agreement reached between the Syrian government and terrorist groups in southern Damascus, in the areas of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem”, using its usual term for all rebels.
The deal gives fighters the choice between leaving the area with their families or handing over their weapons and staying, Sana said.
A resident of Yalda, which is on the eastern edge of Yarmouk, confirmed to The National that residents will be moved in “the coming days”.
The reported deal is the latest in a string of such agreements where the regime has retaken areas near the capital after rebel withdrawals.
Such a deal around Yalda could allow the regime to deploy forces on the eastern edges of Yarmouk after other units advanced towards the camp from the west, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said.
Over the past two days, the army has retaken large parts of the district of Qadam on Yarmouk’s western flank, the Observatory said.
On Saturday, ISIS seized a hospital and surrounding buildings on the eastern edges of Yarmouk as it tried to push towards Yalda, the Observatory said.
Regime war planes yesterday pounded Yarmouk and the neighbouring district of Hajar Al Aswad, it said.
Yarmouk and its surroundings are now the extremists’ largest urban redoubt in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, after ISIS lost most of the of territory it held in both countries.
ISIS has held parts of Yarmouk and Hajar Al Aswad since 2015 and overran Qadam in a surprise assault last month.
At least 85 regime fighters and 74 ISIS extremists have been killed in 10 days of fighting in southern Damascus, the Observatory said.
The announcement of an evacuation deal on Yalda and nearby areas came after the regime reconquered what was once a key rebel bastion east of Damascus earlier this month.
Eastern Ghouta fell after a military operation and a series of evacuation deals brokered by regime ally Russia led thousands of residents to be bussed to northern Syria.
More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.
Yarmouk and its surroundings are now the extremists’ largest urban redoubt in Syria and neighbouring Iraq