Syrian forces raise flag over cradle of revolt

BEIRUT— For the first time in more than seven years, the Syrian government raised its flag Thursday over Daraa, the first city to revolt against President Bashar Assad in 2011and plunge the country into its calamitous civil war.

Officials, accompanied by state media crews, hoisted the flag over the rubble of the city’s main square, allowing it to wave in sight of the shell of the Omari Mosque where protesters first gathered in demonstrations demanding reforms, then Assad’s ouster in the spring of 2011..

With control over Daraa, government forces can now focus on clearing the last pockets of the opposition and, separately, the Daesh group from the frontier at the Golan Heights.

Some 400,000 people have been killed in seven years of war. Protests in Daraa in 2011 against the government’s mistreatment of teenage detainees ignited a national revolt. Ahmad Masalmeh, a media activist formerly based in Daraa, said fighters in the city accepted an offer of amnesty from the government, and let back in the state institutions and symbols of Assad’s rule.

Rebels refusing to accept the deal will be exiled with their families to other rebel-held parts of the country.

Government forces launched an offensive to recapture southwest Syria and the areas neighbouring Jordan and Israel on June 19. They surrounded Daraa’s rebel-held quarters on Monday.

Dozens have been killed in the campaign, including 162 civilians, according to Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights — among them women and children.