Rebels surrender Syrian enclave, handing Assad another major victory

AMMAN, Jordan—It was little more than three years ago when rebels stormed the Nassib border crossing on Syria’s southern border with Jordan. They rampaged through administrative buildings, ripping down the Syrian state flag and stomping on pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

At the time, it was seen as yet another loss for a government on the verge of downfall, its battered troops in desperate retreat across the country.

On Friday, soldiers raised the state flag once again over Nassib, the state-run news agency SANA reported, before a full cease-fire and the rebels surrendering their enclave in the southern province of Daraa.

The victory further cements a Russian-engineered turnaround for Assad, which has handed him back control over what the French once called “La Syrie utile”—the string of major cities running from Aleppo down past Damascus and the country’s Mediterranean coastline.

It also clears the path for reopening the Nassib crossing, an important economic passageway whose loss had impoverished both Syria and Jordan.

SANA posted images on its Telegram channel Saturday of soldiers flashing a victory sign as they waved a flag over one building. Others showed stacks of ammunition and armored vehicles abandoned by the rebels.

It reported that the Syrian army had also captured a number of border outposts east of Nassib and had already “shut down all illegal crossings and smuggling and supply routes for the terrorist groups,” employing the government’s routine term for the opposition.

Over the past two weeks, the sky over the south had been crowded with Russian and Syrian warplanes conducting hundreds of airstrikes on the rebels’ bastion, which at its zenith covered about two-thirds of Daraa and the neighboring province of Quneitrah under the control of Western-backed factions and jihadi from al-Qaida and Islamic State.

With about 320,000 displaced since June 19, and lacking support from their Western and regional backers, the rebels announced Friday they had accepted a deal for a gradual handover of weapons and territory.

Most of the displaced had fled to Daraa’s border with Jordan and to neighboring Quneitrah province near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, whipped by desert winds and temperatures as high as 110 degrees.

At least 15 people couldn’t endure the severe conditions. The United Nations coordination office for humanitarian affairs said they had died in areas close to the Jordanian border due to “scorpion bites, dehydration and diseases transmitted through contaminated water.”

Both Jordan and Israel had refused to let the refugees in, though they did allow aid to be delivered.

About 20,000 civilians had begun returning to their homes Friday evening, according to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.