Deal reached to evacuate pro-regime Syria towns

Adeal was reached yesterday for the evacuation of two pro-regime towns in Syria, allowing thousands to leave after three years of encirclement by hardline rebels.

Fuaa and Kafraya are the last remaining towns under siege in Syria, where the medieval tactic was mostly made notorious by government forces in the sevenyear war.

Surrounded and bombed by hostile factions, the towns became both a rallying cry for the government and a playing card in callous rebel hands.

Their residents are all expected to leave under a major agreement reached yesterday between government ally Moscow and rebel backer Ankara, a war monitor said.

“The deal provides for the total evacuation of residents in the two towns, which are besieged by rebels and Hayat Tahrir alSham, to regime territory in nearby Aleppo province,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is a militant alliance led by Al Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria.

Hundreds of people would be released from the regime’s notorious detention centres in exchange, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

A source from HTS also confirmed the deal, telling AFP that more than 100 buses would evacuate 6,900 people including fighters and civilians from Fuaa and Kafraya.