Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Last insurgents leave Syrian city
Rebels’ exit will give government forces full control of Homs
BEIRUT — The final batch of opposition fighters and their families began leaving a besieged neighborhood in the central city of Homs on Saturday, a move that will bring Syria’s third-largest city under full government control for the first time in years.
Syrian state TV and an opposition monitoring group said evacuations of the last batch began Saturday . The state-owned Syrian Arab News Agency said about 400 people, including 103 gunmen, left the al-Waer neighborhood heading toward the northern town of Jarablous, which borders Turkey.
When the evacuation of rebels from al-Waer ends, it will bring the city under full government control for the first time in more than five years. Government forces in recent years captured one Homs neighborhood after another, until opposition fighters were isolated in al-Waer; the siege of the district began in 2013.
Homs governor Talal Barrazi said that once al-Waer is free of rebels, Syrian government forces will enter.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12,000 people were meant to be evacuated from al-Waer. But that the figure has exceeded 20,000 as many fear that their sons will be drafted into the army if they stay.
The Observatory said Russian military police have already begun entering parts of al-Waer.
The evacuations in Homs came as Turkey’s official media said Ankara has stepped up its training program for rebels known as the Free Syrian Army, a militia that has fought alongside Turkish forces against the Islamic State group and U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels.
Turkey has vowed to battle Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq if necessary. The staterun Anadolu news agency reported that Turkish special forces are training larger Free Syrian Army groups in using weapons including mortars, rocket launchers and machine guns, in terrain similar to where the fighters operate.
The agency quoted an unidentified military official saying, “It’s no longer the old FSA in the field but a new FSA being born. These FSA members in training will show their difference in possible future operations.”
Anadolu said the training was stepped up after Turkey declared in March an end to the first phase of its military operation with the rebels against Islamic State and Kurdish militants in northern Syria.
Ankara sent ground troops into northern Syria in August to help Syrian opposition forces drive Islamic State militants from the border and curb the advance of Kurdish forces.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the country would retaliate if the People’s Protection Units pose a security threat and that a new cross-border operation could be launched.
Turkey deems the group in Syria a terror organization and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party based in northern Iraq, which has waged a 3-decade-long insurgency against the state in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Quoting security sources, Anadolu on Friday reported preparations by the Turkish military along its southern border to respond to potential attacks by the Kurdish groups.
The agency said a number of ground units, armored military vehicles and munitions have been dispatched to the border for cross-border operation scenarios. Logistical preparations including tents and containers are at the border and bases for air operations have been readied.
Anadolu said with “alarm levels raised,” military units and intelligence are monitoring Kurdish-controlled Afrin, Tel Abyad and Qamishli in northern Syria and the Iraqi border.
The U.S. considers the People’s Protection Units a distinct entity from the outlawed party and a key ally in Syria. Syrian Kurdish forces, armed by the U.S., are the main fighting power in the campaign to liberate Raqqa, the declared capital of the Islamic State.
In eastern Syria, Islamic State fighters took advantage of a dust storm in the province of Deir el-Zour, storming a village controlled by the group led by the Kurds, where they killed at least eight people and kidnapped more than a dozen.
The Syrian Democratic Forces have been on the offensive against the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria for months and are now marching toward Raqqa. The extremists have repeatedly hit back with attacks on villages and towns controlled by the group and other opponents.
The Observatory said Islamic State fighters entered the village of Jazaret al-Bushams on Friday afternoon, killed 19 civilians and kidnapped others. Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based opposition activist from Deir el-Zour, said the extremists killed eight and kidnapped 13.