Rebel towns yield to Assad’s forces
BEIRUT: A string of Syrian rebelheld towns and villages accepted government rule on Saturday as insurgent lines collapsed in parts of the southwest under an intense bombardment that the United Nations says has forced 160,000 people to flee.
The southwest was an early hotbed of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and defeat there would leave rebels with just one remaining stronghold — the area around Idlib province bordering Turkey in the northwest.
Rebels met Russian negotiators on Saturday to seek peace terms for Deraa province, where most of their southwest territory is located, but said these failed.
Local groups in many towns seized by the army in recent days had negotiated their own surrender deals independently of the main rebel operations rooms after heavy air raids.
Rebels said they had taken back several towns and villages lost to the army earlier in the day, but their overall loss of ground was still significant.
State television broadcast footage from inside the towns of Dael and al-Ghariya al-Gharbiya, where people were shown chanting pro-Assad slogans. A war monitor and a military media unit run by Hizbollah said numerous towns and villages had agreed to come back under Assad’s rule.
Fierce battles were ongoing around Deraa city, near the Jordanian border, where the army had repeatedly failed to capture a disused air base. The northwestern chunk of Deraa province remains in rebel hands.