Syria’s third-largest city, Homs, cleared of rebels

BEIRUT — Syria’s government announced Sunday the country’s third-largest city Homs— once named the capital of the revolt against President Bashar Assad— had been cleared of armed opposition for the first time in more than five years. The announcement follows the completion of the evacuation of the last rebel-held neighborhood.

Besieged for four years, al-Waer was the last oppositioncontrolled district in Homs. The evacuation of armed fighters, their families and opposition activists, began several weeks ago, following a deal that effectively surrenders the district following the tightening siege coupled with a military campaign.

Similar deals have been reached recently, bringing a number of neighborhoods near the capital, as well as the country’s former commercial center and largest city Aleppo country, back to government control.

It is a major shift from a few years ago when the armed opposition was on the rise, threatening the capital and holding on to more than half of Aleppo.

Syrian TV broadcast from inside al-Waer district, showing children and men gathering around government-sponsored trucks distributing bread and goods.

Homs city, once labelled the capital of the anti-Assad revolution, has been at least partially controlled by the rebels since the early days of the revolt that broke out in 2011. But government forces recaptured one Homs neighborhood after the other, finally isolating the rebels in al-Waer.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said over 20,000 people were evacuated from al-Waer to the rebelheld areas in the country’s north over the past several weeks.

“It is a great achievement today,” Homs governor Talal Barrazi told Syrian TV channel al-Ikhbariya from al-Waer. He said state institutions will begin their return to al-Waer immediately.

Rebels still control areas north of Homs city while the government is on the offensive against Islamic State militants to the south.

The myriad of Syria’s opposition and armed rebels are now concentrated in the rebel-held northern province of Idlib, and in rural Aleppo along the border with Turkey. Islamic State militants still hold territory in eastern and northeastern Syria and south of Homs city.