BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian capital of Damascus and its surrounding suburbs are entirely free of rebel fighters for the first time in seven years, the government said on Monday.

That milestone was achieved when the last Islamic State fighters reached an agreement with the government over the weekend to leave the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk and the neighboring town of Hajar al-Aswad and head to one of the militant group’s last strongholds in eastern Syria.

Their retreat, confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, ended weeks of fighting that had reduced the camp, once home to about 160,000, to smoking, dusty rubble.

After the final convoy of militants left, the government released a statement saying, “The Syrian General Command of the Army and Armed Forces announced Damascus and Damascus countryside entirely safe areas after fully cleansing al-Hajar al-Aswad and al-Yarmouk Camp of terrorism.” </s> Israeli-made weapons among arms handed over by militants in Damascus

BEIRUT, LEBANON (9:10 A.M.) – For the first time since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, the city of Damascus is fully under the control of the Syrian military.

The long-time stronghold for the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), southern Damascus was the only part of the capital that was still outside of the Syrian government’s control.

However, that would change on May 19th, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) finally agreed to hold talks with the Islamic State in the area; this would lead to the latter’s surrender the next day.

The remaining Islamic State terrorists and their family members will now be transported to the vast Badiya area that was located between eastern Homs and western Deir Ezzor.

With ISIS gone, the Syrian Army now free up thousands of soldiers for the upcoming offensive in the southern provinces of Al-Quneitra and Dara’a. </s> In this photo released Tuesday, May 15, 2018 by the Syrian official news agency, SANA, a convoy of Syrian government forces and police hold portraits of Syrian President Bashar Assad

The Syrian army pushed Islamic State militants out of a south Damascus pocket on Monday and declared the Syrian capital and its surroundings “completely safe” from militants for the first time in nearly seven years.

Pro-Syrian government forces have been battling for weeks to recover al-Hajar al-Aswad district and the adjacent Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp since driving rebels from eastern Ghouta in April.

A state television presenter said the recovery of al-Hajar al-Aswad meant the area south of Damascus had been completely cleared of insurgents.

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Syrian military declares Damascus free from ISIS, militants - דלג Syrian military declares Damascus free from ISIS, militants

The ultra-hardline jihadist group now controls only two besieged desert areas in eastern Syria, while another insurgent group that has pledged loyalty to it holds a small enclave in the southwest.

A temporary humanitarian ceasefire had been in place since Sunday night in al-Hajar al-Aswad to allow women, children and old people leave, state media said early on Monday.

Army soldiers fired into the air in celebration and held Syrian flags, against a smashed cityscape of shattered buildings and widespread destruction.

Buildings and walls were pocked-marked from bullets and shell-fire, metal satellite dishes were bent and scorched, and the dome of a mosque had a gaping hole near its base.

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On Sunday, a war monitor said fighters had begun withdrawing from the area towards Islamic State territory in eastern Syria under a surrender deal, but state media said fighting continued.

The war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Monday that buses had already started leaving south Damascus for Islamic State areas in eastern Syria.

While Assad has vowed to win back "every inch" of Syria, the map of the conflict suggests a more complicated time ahead from now on.

The U.S. military is in much of the east and northeast, which is controlled by Kurdish groups that want autonomy from Damascus. It has used force to defend the territory from pro-Assad forces.

Turkey has sent forces into the northwest to counter those same Kurdish groups, carving out a buffer zone where anti-Assad rebels have regrouped.

In the southwest, where rebels hold territory at the Israeli and Jordanian border, Assad faces the risk of conflict with Israel, which wants his Iranian-backed allies kept well away from the frontier and has mounted air strikes in Syria. </s> BEIRUT, LEBANON (3:20 A.M.) – An agreement was put in place in southern Damascus, tonight, after the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) agreed to surrender their last positions in the Yarmouk Camp and Hajar Al-Aswad.

According to a military source in Damascus, dozens of buses started entering the Yarmouk Camp and Hajar Al-Aswad to transport the Islamic State terrorists to the Badiya region in eastern Syria.

ISIS was forced to surrender these districts in southern Damascus after losing a large chunk of their territory to the Syrian Army this month.

With the Islamic State’s future departure, the city of Damascus will be free of any militant groups for the first time in seven years. </s> BEIRUT -- Syria's military said Monday it had retaken the last neighborhoods in southern Damascus held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and declared the Syrian capital and its surroundings "completely safe" from militants for the first time in nearly seven years. Reading an army statement on Syrian TV, Gen. Ali Mayhoub said the army captured the former ISIS strongholds in the Palestinian Yarmouk camp and Hajar al-Aswad after a month-long campaign. He said the army operations were "concentrated and successive," leading to the extremists' defeat in the city.

The gains by President Bashar Assad's troops bring greater Damascus -- including the capital's far-flung suburbs -- fully under government control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.

"Damascus and its surroundings are completely secure," Mayhoub said.

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State TV earlier said that government forces resumed an offensive at noon after a group of civilians was evacuated from the area overnight. Two hours later, the TV said troops captured ISIS' former stronghold of Hajar al-Aswad and broadcast images showing troops waving the Syrian national flag in the heavily destroyed neighborhood.

A war monitoring group said some 1,600 people, including hundreds of ISIS gunmen, left the area on Saturday and Sunday, heading toward the desert east of the country following a deal with the government. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces were now clearing the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, a built-up residential area, of the last remaining ISIS fighters. It said the month of fighting left scores dead on both sides.

The TV earlier quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying the two-day truce had been in place to evacuate women, children and the elderly on Sunday night from Hajar al-Aswad. Syrian state media denied a deal was reached to evacuate fighters.

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The push into Hajar al-Aswad and Yarmouk came after government forces captured the last rebel-held southern and eastern suburbs of Damascus, boosting security in Assad's seat of power.

"The Daesh terrorist organization was wiped out in Hajar al-Aswad," an unnamed Syrian soldier told state TV, using an Arabic acronym to refer to ISIS. "We will keep marching until we liberate all parts of Syria."

Assad's forces have been making steady gains since 2015, when Russia launched an air campaign on behalf of his forces. In December 2016, government forces captured rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of the northern city of Aleppo, marking Assad's biggest victory since the conflict began. In March and April, thousands of opposition fighters surrendered and were evacuated from Damascus suburbs known as eastern Ghouta, after a crushing government offensive.

Shortly before noon on Monday, when the truce was supposed to end in Hajar al-Aswad, government warplanes struck ISIS positions as Syrian troops began advancing deeper into the neighborhood. The Observatory said ISIS fighters have been setting their offices and vehicles on fire so that government forces would not be able to seize equipment or documents belonging to the group.

The extremists have been driven from nearly all the territory they once held in Syria and neighboring Iraq, but still maintain a presence in remote areas along the border.

Both Russia and Iran have provided crucial military support to Assad's forces, giving them the upper hand in the civil war.

Iran nuclear deal is "exactly why Iran is in Syria," says Vice President Mike Pence

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Assad during a meeting last week that a political settlement in Syria should encourage foreign countries to withdraw their troops from Syria. Putin's envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said the Russian leader was referring to Iranian forces.

But on Monday, Tehran appeared to reject that idea, saying its forces will remain in Syria and continue fighting "terrorism" at the request of the Syrian government.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters Monday that no one can force Tehran to do anything it doesn't desire to do. "Our presence in Syria has been based on a request by the Syrian government and Iran will continue its support as long as the Syrian government wants," he said. </s> Syria's military announced Monday that it cleared Damascus and its suburbs of the last elements of the Islamic state militant group, ISIS.

According to government reports, the Syrian army had driven ISIS out of the rebel group's last remaining strongholds in southern Damascus; this marks the first time that President Bashar al-Assad's government has total control of the capital since the rebellion began in 2011.

Syrian state TV broadcast footage of tanks rolling through a shattered neighborhood once held by rebels, as government troops waved the national flag. Army Gen. Ali Mayhoub announced that military operations in and around the capital had been a success and that the area is "completely secure" after the army captured former ISIS strongholds of Yarmouk refugee camp and the Hajar al-Aswad district south of the capital.

The military left "big numbers of Daesh (ISIS) terrorists dead," reported the Syrian Arab News Agency.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group downplayed the military victory, saying that it was a "secret agreement" between the government and ISIS that allowed the rebels to depart.

The organization claimed that ISIS fighters and their families boarded "some 32 buses that carried out about 1600 people aboard" and that they were driven toward the Syrian Desert.

Syrian state media denied there was a deal to evacuate fighters, according to the Associated Press, which quoted one military official as saying that a two-day truce had been arranged to evacuate women, children and the elderly on Sunday night from Hajar al-Aswad.

Amy Austin Holmes, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told NPR that this was an historic day for Assad's government. "The regime has been saying for some time now that they want to take back all of Syria. This is just one more step toward accomplishing that goal."

She added, "Whether it will be able to retake all area currently under Kurdish control, that is a whole other question."

With support from Russia and Iran, Syrian forces have made sweeping victories in territories controlled by the opposition. The spring saw thousands of rebel fighters surrender and board crammed buses out of eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, following weeks of bombardment.

In April, the Syrian army took control of at least two villages from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces east of the Euphrates River, near the border with Iraq where Kurdish forces had control.

In 2016, government forces enjoyed their biggest victory, capturing neighborhoods in Aleppo that rebels had controlled for years. As Syria's largest city, Aleppo was considered "the heart of the revolution."

More than 5.6 million people have fled the war-torn country since the civil war started and 6.6 are internally displaced. </s> BEIRUT -- Syria's military said Monday it had retaken the last neighborhoods in southern Damascus held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and declared the Syrian capital and its surroundings "completely safe" from militants for the first time in nearly seven years. Reading an army statement on Syrian TV, Gen. Ali Mayhoub said the army captured the former ISIS strongholds in the Palestinian Yarmouk camp and Hajar al-Aswad after a month-long campaign. He said the army operations were "concentrated and successive," leading to the extremists' defeat in the city.

The gains by President Bashar Assad's troops bring greater Damascus -- including the capital's far-flung suburbs -- fully under government control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.

"Damascus and its surroundings are completely secure," Mayhoub said.

State TV earlier said that government forces resumed an offensive at noon after a group of civilians was evacuated from the area overnight. Two hours later, the TV said troops captured ISIS' former stronghold of Hajar al-Aswad and broadcast images showing troops waving the Syrian national flag in the heavily destroyed neighborhood.

A war monitoring group said some 1,600 people, including hundreds of ISIS gunmen, left the area on Saturday and Sunday, heading toward the desert east of the country following a deal with the government. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces were now clearing the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, a built-up residential area, of the last remaining ISIS fighters. It said the month of fighting left scores dead on both sides.

The TV earlier quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying the two-day truce had been in place to evacuate women, children and the elderly on Sunday night from Hajar al-Aswad. Syrian state media denied a deal was reached to evacuate fighters.

The push into Hajar al-Aswad and Yarmouk came after government forces captured the last rebel-held southern and eastern suburbs of Damascus, boosting security in Assad's seat of power.

"The Daesh terrorist organization was wiped out in Hajar al-Aswad," an unnamed Syrian soldier told state TV, using an Arabic acronym to refer to ISIS. "We will keep marching until we liberate all parts of Syria."

Assad's forces have been making steady gains since 2015, when Russia launched an air campaign on behalf of his forces. In December 2016, government forces captured rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of the northern city of Aleppo, marking Assad's biggest victory since the conflict began. In March and April, thousands of opposition fighters surrendered and were evacuated from Damascus suburbs known as eastern Ghouta, after a crushing government offensive.

Shortly before noon on Monday, when the truce was supposed to end in Hajar al-Aswad, government warplanes struck ISIS positions as Syrian troops began advancing deeper into the neighborhood. The Observatory said ISIS fighters have been setting their offices and vehicles on fire so that government forces would not be able to seize equipment or documents belonging to the group.

The extremists have been driven from nearly all the territory they once held in Syria and neighboring Iraq, but still maintain a presence in remote areas along the border.

Both Russia and Iran have provided crucial military support to Assad's forces, giving them the upper hand in the civil war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Assad during a meeting last week that a political settlement in Syria should encourage foreign countries to withdraw their troops from Syria. Putin's envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said the Russian leader was referring to Iranian forces.

But on Monday, Tehran appeared to reject that idea, saying its forces will remain in Syria and continue fighting "terrorism" at the request of the Syrian government.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters Monday that no one can force Tehran to do anything it doesn't desire to do. "Our presence in Syria has been based on a request by the Syrian government and Iran will continue its support as long as the Syrian government wants," he said. </s> On August 21, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Tiger Forces liberated the town of Khan Shaykhun and the areas of Khazanat and Tal Taeri, thus fully encircling remaining militants in northern Hama.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham strong points of Kafr Zita, Lataminah, and Morek, as well as the nearby settlements of Lahaya, Markabah, Latmin and Sayad are now fully cut off from their radical counterparts in the Idlib zone. A Morek observation post, where Turkish troops are deployed, is also encircled.

Khan Shaykhun, located on a highway linking Damascus with Aleppo, is one of the biggest urban centers in southern Idlib. For years, it had served as the key stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants. Currently, SAA troops are working to secure their recent gains and preparing for a further push to clear the rest of northern Hama.

Reacting to the Syrian military advance, a Turkish presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, saidthat all observation posts, including the one near Murak, will remain in their positions in Greater Idlib. He also revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the phone over the situation in Idlib in the next couple of days.

These remarks were accompanied with common Turkish media propaganda accusing the SAA of violating the ceasefire regime and oppressing so-called moderate rebels. But in fact, Turkey just admitted its tactical loss and inability to rescue militants in this part of Syria.

Another important point of Kalin’s statement was dedicated to the US-Turkish ‘safe-zone’ agreement on northern Syria. According to the Turkish side, joint partrols US and Turkish forces will soon be launched east of the Euphrates, within the area controlled by US-backed Kurdish groups. Ankara see these groups as terrorist organizations and has repeatedly shelled their positions. So, it will be interesting to look how this claim will be implemented if US-backed formations remain deployed in the areas of supposed joint patrols.

BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:10 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) scored a major victory in the southern countryside of the Idlib Governorate this week when the jihadist rebels abandoned several areas, including the strategic city of Khan Sheikhoun. Since the militant withdrawal from Khan Sheikhoun, the Syrian Arab Army has moved into the city and begun clearing the empty neighborhoods, while also securing other areas east of the city. According to a military source near the front-lines, the Syrian Arab Army has completed the siege of northern Hama after capturing several points near the town of Al-Ta’manah in the southern countryside of Idlib. While Al-Ta’manah has not been captured, the Syrian Army has seized most of the points south and east of the town, leaving only a small area left under the control of the jihadist rebels. At the same time, with the Ta’manah-Khan Sheikhoun Road closed off, the Turkish Armed Forces now find themselves encircled by the Syrian Arab Army at the town of Morek. Turkey has already announced that they will not abandon their observation post at Morek, despite the recent militant setbacks. The Turkish regime has also warned the Syrian military about “playing with fire” in this area, especially after the Syrian Air Force almost hit their military convoy in southern Idlib.

Filed under: Al Qaeda, Erdogan, neo-Ottoman, SAA, The 5 Seas Region, Turkey, USA, War on Syria | Tagged: Hama, Khan Sheikhoun, Liberation of Idlib | </s> The Syrian government has reached an evacuation deal with fighters from Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to leave the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus.

The official SANA news agency announced on Monday that the fighters and their families, numbering about 5,000, would be evacuated in two stages, the first of which would see 1,500 people transported to the rebel-controlled Idlib province in northwestern Syria.

The deal is part of a wider agreement between HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, and President Bashar al-Assad's government to surrender heavy and medium military hardware.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said the rebel group had to concede to government demands of releasing prisoners and allowing thousands of Syrians from the besieged loyalist towns of Kefraya and Foua to head for government-controlled territory.

SANA reported that these include 85 prisoners, "mostly women, children and elderly", from the rebel-controlled town of Eshtabraq.

"Pro-government forces have long wanted to fully evacuate the predominately Shia towns because that would deny the rebels the ability to pressure Damascus by threatening to target them," she said.

Buses to transport the rebels and their relatives have already begun gathering around Yarmouk near midnight, local news media reported.

Khodr said this was the fourth such agreement in recent weeks and constituted another important win for government forces and their allies.

"Rebels have already surrendered Eastern Ghouta, which was their main stronghold close to the capital, and a pocket of territory in the Qalamoun region, northeast of Damascus," she said.

"In a few days, rebel factions linked to the Free Syrian Army are expected to hand over the districts of Babbila, Beit Sahm and Yalda in southern Damascus in order to stave off a military operation".

Nevertheless, this falls short of securing the entirety of southern Damascus, with a few pockets of territory still under control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Government forces have been involved in a two-week-long offensive to recapture the territory, but ISIL units have put up fierce resistance in areas where heavy weapons have proven to be of limited use.
The Syrian government declares Damascus as "completely safe" from militant groups for the first time in seven years as it forces out ISIS from the area.