BEIRUT (Reuters) - The last group of rebels and other people who wanted to leave the besieged Barzeh district of Damascus have done so, the Syrian capital’s governor was quoted as saying on Monday by state television, bringing it under state control.

Some 1,012 people, including 455 fighters, left Barzeh in a bus convoy for rebel-held parts of northern Syria as part of an agreement between the government and insurgents, state TV said. </s> The last rebels and others who had agreed to leave the besieged Barzeh district of Damascus have done so, the Syrian capital's governor was quoted as saying on Monday by state television, bringing the entire area under state control.

BEIRUT: The last rebels and others who had agreed to leave the besieged Barzeh district of Damascus have done so, the Syrian capital's governor was quoted as saying on Monday by state television, bringing the entire area under state control.

Some 1,012 people, including 455 fighters, left Barzeh in a bus convoy for rebel-held parts of northern Syria as part of an agreement between the government and insurgents, state TV said.

Barzeh and the adjacent districts Qaboun and Tishreen, in northeast Damascus, will now come under the sway of President Bashar al-Assad's government, giving him almost complete control over the capital for the first time since 2013.

Most residents of the once-bustling area, which sheltered displaced people from other parts of Syria during the war, fled over the last two months as violence there intensified.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the last buses began to leave Barzeh on Monday afternoon.

The Observatory said most evacuees were going to Idlib province, a rebel stronghold in northwest Syria bordering Turkey. Some would go to Jarablus, a town that Turkey-backed rebels control along Syria's northern border.

Hundreds of rebels and civilians have left the Damascus districts this month under agreement with the government after weeks of intense fighting and bombardment.

Assad has promoted local evacuation deals for rebel bastions in what the state calls "reconciliation" deals as a way of reducing bloodshed in the six-year conflict. Residents can stay on in those areas if they agree to submit to government rule.

But the United Nations has criticised both the use of siege tactics that have preceded such deals and the evacuations as amounting to forcible displacement. </s> More than 1,000 people quit a rebel-held district of Damascus Monday, its governor said, in the final phase of a deal bringing Syria's government closer to controlling the entire capital.

The evacuations from the northern neighbourhood of Barzeh are part of a so-called "reconciliation" agreement for three opposition-held districts of Damascus.

Under such deals, fighters and civilians are granted safe passage to other rebel-held territory in exchange for an end to bombardment and siege.

The agreement has allowed Syria's government to declare control over the Damascus districts of Qabun and Tishrin, and on Monday the last evacuees left Barzeh.

"The last phase of the reconciliation deal for Barzeh is complete, with the departure of 1,012 people including 455 armed men," Damascus governor Beshr Assaban told state news agency SANA.

"This will allow state institutions to return to the neighbourhood," Assaban said.

The agreement was struck earlier this month and had already seen more than 5,000 people -- nearly half of them rebels -- leave Barzeh in several waves.

Like the thousands who left Qabun and Tishrin, they will head to opposition-controlled territory in northern Syria.

There are now only a handful of areas in Damascus that remain outside government control.

Rebels hold part of the heavily damaged Jobar district in the east, and in the south, the Tadamun and Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhoods as well as the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk are now mostly controlled by jihadists.

The evacuation deals follow a pattern of similar agreements in towns and villages around Damascus, as well as in third city Homs.

The government says the deals are the best way to end the six-year war, but the opposition says this amounts to forced displacement.

Damascus has been insulated from some of the worst violence of Syria's war, which has killed more than 320,000 people since it began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

But the government has made securing control of the last remaining rebel districts in the capital a key priority. </s> BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Warplanes bombed rebel-held towns east of Damascus on Wednesday, striking residential areas where Russia had declared a ceasefire less than 24 hours earlier and leaving dozens injured, according to residents, rebels and a monitoring group.

Air raids and artillery hit three towns in Eastern Ghouta, part of Syria's Damascus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A ceasefire had been agreed in the area until March 20, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.

The Syrian air force struck at jihadists linked to a former al Qaeda offshoot in Irbeen, a city north-east of Damascus in Eastern Ghouta, and in al Qaboun, closer to the center of the capital, according to a media unit of Hezbollah, a Damascus ally. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military.

At least 30 air raids hit the region on Wednesday, along with dozens of artillery rounds and ground-to-ground missiles fired from government-held areas, a rebel and a resident said.

The Syrian army has been closing in on eastern suburbs of Damascus still in rebel hands, such as Qaboun, and seeking to storm neighboring towns in Eastern Ghouta. Air raids and fighting have escalated in recent days, opposition sources said.

The army and its allies are trying to force rebels to agree to truces similar to those that have led to the evacuation of thousands of opposition fighters to northern Syria.

The army has for the last 20 days concentrated its air strikes on Qaboun district, effectively ending a ceasefire that rebels in the area agreed with the Syrian army which had been in place since the end of 2013.

The army suspects tunnels from Qaboun to Eastern Ghouta have become a lifeline for people and rebels in the besieged area, the opposition's largest remaining stronghold near Damascus.

"If they take over Qaboun, the regime will be able to enforce a complete siege of Ghouta," said a fighter from Failaq al Rahman, a rebel group operating in the area called Fahed.

Thousands of civilians have fled Qaboun, a district that had drawn tens of thousands of people escaping from violence elsewhere. They have found refuge in the adjoining Damascene district of Barza, where many families have taken refuge in the streets, public gardens and mosques.

Barza has agreed a full truce with the government that has been in place since 2014. Unlike other besieged suburbs, most of civilians living in Barza can go to the capital to work and to buy food and other supplies.

Before the Syrian conflict began in 2011, more than half a million people lived in Eastern Ghouta. The sprawling mix of urban districts and farmland was once a major economic hub serving the capital, but now its population has dwindled to tens of thousands and continues to shrink. </s> BEIRUT: Rebel fighters and their families began leaving their last bastion in the Syrian city of Homs on Saturday, state media and a Reuters witness said, under an evacuation deal with the government that is expected to be the largest of its kind.

The first two buses carrying rebels and their families left al-Waer district in the morning, heading for other rebel-held areas in northern Syria. Homs governor Talal Barazi told Reuters 400 to 500 fighters would evacuate on Saturday, along with their family members.

Under the agreement, more than 12,000 people would leave in batches over the coming weeks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitoring group. </s> Air raids and artillery hit three towns in Eastern Ghouta, part of Syria's Damascus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A ceasefire had been agreed in the area until March 20, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.

The Syrian air force struck at jihadists linked to a former al Qaeda offshoot in Irbeen, a city north-east of Damascus in Eastern Ghouta, and in al Qaboun, closer to the centre of the capital, according to a media unit of Hezbollah, a Damascus ally. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military.

At least 30 air raids hit the region on Wednesday, along with dozens of artillery rounds and ground-to-ground missiles fired from government-held areas, a rebel and a resident said.

The Syrian army has been closing in on eastern suburbs of Damascus still in rebel hands, such as Qaboun, and seeking to storm neighbouring towns in Eastern Ghouta. Air raids and fighting have escalated in recent days, opposition sources said.

The army and its allies are trying to force rebels to agree to truces similar to those that have led to the evacuation of thousands of opposition fighters to northern Syria.

The army has for the last 20 days concentrated its air strikes on Qaboun district, effectively ending a ceasefire that rebels in the area agreed with the Syrian army which had been in place since the end of 2013.

The army suspects tunnels from Qaboun to Eastern Ghouta have become a lifeline for people and rebels in the besieged area, the opposition's largest remaining stronghold near Damascus.

"If they take over Qaboun, the regime will be able to enforce a complete siege of Ghouta," said a fighter from Failaq al Rahman, a rebel group operating in the area called Fahed.

Thousands of civilians have fled Qaboun, a district that had drawn tens of thousands of people escaping from violence elsewhere. They have found refuge in the adjoining Damascene district of Barza, where many families have taken refuge in the streets, public gardens and mosques.

Barza has agreed a full truce with the government that has been in place since 2014. Unlike other besieged suburbs, most of civilians living in Barza can go to the capital to work and to buy food and other supplies.

Before the Syrian conflict began in 2011, more than half a million people lived in Eastern Ghouta. The sprawling mix of urban districts and farmland was once a major economic hub serving the capital, but now its population has dwindled to tens of thousands and continues to shrink. </s> Syria has reached another deal on evacuation with another rebel faction near Damascus, with over 1,000 people, including rebels and family members bused out of the Barzeh District, and sent north toward the Idlib Province, which is held by various rebel factions.

Barzeh has been described as a virtual ghost town during the civil war, as the rebel presence and the constant fighting around the periphery has made it, like a lot of Damascus suburbs, profoundly unsafe. As fighting has turned against the rebels, more and more have been willing to make deals.

The government has been eager to make such deals, as actually engaging in urban fighting to remove the rebels is a messy proposition, and they appear to much prefer having them evacuated into the north, which at the very least clears more of the area around the capital city.

In the end, such evacuation deals are filling Idlib up with a lot of rebels, and while there is some infighting among them, it’s also such a large force it may be very difficult for Syria’s military to ever retake these areas, making the displacements potentially the start of a permanent division within Syria.
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• McCain: Putin Is a Bigger Threat Than ISIS - May 29th, 2017 </s> Syrian rebels and their families were expected to leave a besieged town in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus on Thursday, in an evacuation deal that will see the town handed over to the government following years of siege.

Rebels released 13 prisoners of war ahead of the evacuation.

The deal is the first such arrangement made for a town inside the beleaguered eastern Ghouta enclave, which has endured one month of relentless shelling and bombardment as the government, backed by its ally Russia, pushed to retake the area after seven years of revolt.

The agreement could serve as a blueprint for other towns in the enclave.

State-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV cast the deal as a victory for the country. Its correspondent Rabieh Dibeh said 10 buses had crossed into the town of Harasta to transport the "terrorists" — as the government refers to all armed opposition fighters — to a rebel-held province in north Syria. The camera showed dozens more buses waiting to enter Harasta.

Critics say it is a formula for displacement that lets the state choose its citizenry — and expel those opposed to or fearful of President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule.

Some 6,000 civilians are expected to depart with the militants, some of them family members of the rebels and others activists, and other people afraid of the government's vindictive security services. An unknown number of others have already been forced out of their homes or killed in the government's ferocious campaigns against Harasta and eastern Ghouta leading up to the deal.

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross are not facilitating the evacuations; they are being done in conjunction with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

The deal is modeled after others that have had rebels surrender swaths of territory around the capital and other major cities to the government. In all cases, the arrangements followed indiscriminate campaigns by the government against hospitals, markets, and other civilian targets, driving thousands of civilians out of their homes.

Harasta appeared in ruins in a broadcast from al-Ikhbariya, and apartment blocks in the town looked gutted. Monther Fares, a spokesman for the rebel faction Ahrar al-Sham, confirmed that his group's fighters were preparing to depart.

The government-controlled Military Media Center said 1,500 rebels and 6,000 civilians would leave Harasta on Thursday.

The 13 men released by the Syrian rebels ahead of the evacuation identified themselves to the media as soldiers and civilians attached to the Syrian army, who were captured by rebels in the fighting for Harasta. In the TV footage, many cried in relief, thanking God, the Syrian army, and President Assad for their freedom.

Al-Manar TV, which belongs to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a key Assad ally, said the government released five "terrorists" to rebels, in exchange.

Fares said the rebels agreed to leave because of "civilian pressure" resulting from intensive airstrikes and "warplanes that do not leave the sky," adding that residents of Harasta have spent the last three months inside shelters.

Russia, a military backer of Assad, was the guarantor of the deal, he said.

Also Thursday, civilians streamed out of another part of the eastern Ghouta, continuing a trend that has seen close to 50,000 people flee across lines to the government for safety.

The Russian military said more than 1,000 civilians left rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday morning. Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin told Russian news agencies in Syria the civilians left through the Wafideen crossing.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said some 4,000 people departed the besieged town of Douma in the last 24 hours.

An Associated Press journalist in Damascus, Syria and AP writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report. </s> BEIRUT — Syrian government forces threatened Tuesday to storm the last opposition holdout in Aleppo, potentially complicating an internationally supported effort to evacuate thousands of civilians still trapped in the city.

The media of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, an ally of President Bashar Assad that is fighting in Aleppo, said Syrian troops have issued their last call for people to leave the sliver of territory in the city's eastern districts still in the hands of opposition forces.

As many as 25,000 people have been evacuated from the area since Thursday, Robert Mardini, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said on Twitter.

Evacuations have been taking place since last week as part of an agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey, but disruptions have complicated the effort as thousands are still waiting to be bussed to the rebel-held province to the west.

The deal — seen as the only way to avoid a bloodbath — has surrendered to Assad's government the eastern districts of the city that rebel fighters have held since 2012. That represents a major victory for the Syrian leader and his allies, including Russia and Iran.

Pro-government fighters, including militiamen from Hezbollah and Iran, temporarily halted the evacuations to demand that residents of two nearby Shiite villages under siege by rebels also be evacuated. Islamist rebels later burned those evacuation buses temporarily complicating the entire evacuation plan.

Opposition Syrians accuse government forces and allied militiamen of robbing and even executing a number of people as they have moved into the parts of eastern Aleppo once held by the rebels.

At the United Nations, the Security Council voted Monday to deploy international observers to monitor the evacuation routes in Aleppo, ending months of deadlock over the fate of the city as government forces closed in.

France's envoy to the Security Council said he hoped the resolution would prevent Aleppo from turning into another Srebrenica, where thousands of Bosnian men and boys were massacred in 1995 as the town fell to Serb forces. But the text of the resolution allowed five days for the observers to arrive, suggesting that the mission may not get off the ground until the evacuation is complete.

The city has seen some of the fiercest fighting of Syria's war. For much of it, Aleppo's eastern districts had been the rebels' most important stronghold.

Thousands of people remain camped out in what is left of the rebels' Aleppo enclave — its streets shattered beyond recognition by shelling.

Photographs from the area on Sunday night showed fires on the streets as residents tried to keep warm. Temperatures drop below freezing at night, and many people are sleeping on sidewalks and in abandoned buildings.

Several residents disembarking from the evacuation buses in the early hours of Monday were bundled up in coats. Many were exhausted, frustrated and in tears, said Ahmad Dbis, a doctor coordinating a team welcoming the evacuees.

"These people came out of hell, but they are indignant at their treatment," Dbis said. "They keep asking why people didn't help them in Aleppo."

The U.N. children's agency said Monday that 47 children had arrived safely from an orphanage, some of them in critical condition because of injuries or dehydration.

As an addendum to the Aleppo evacuation deal, 10 buses carried civilians away from two Shiite villages long besieged by rebels — Fouaa and Kefraya in Idlib - on Monday morning, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the pan-Arab Mayadeen television station.
Damascus's governor says the last group of rebels and civilians have left the city's besieged Barzeh district.