Several thousand residents evacuated two pro-government towns in northern Syria on Thursday, putting an end to one of the longest sieges of the country’s seven-year civil war.

Fuaa and Kafraya in Idlib province were the last remaining areas under blockade in Syria and a rare example of pro-government towns surrounded by rebel forces.

The Shia-majority towns were besieged for three years by rebels and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant alliance led by Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate.

Surrounded and bombed by hostile factions, the towns had become a rallying cry for the government and its ally Iran.

A deal was reached on Tuesday between government-backer Russia and rebel-ally Turkey to see the residents taken to government-held territory in exchange for the release of prisoners from government jails.

On Wednesday morning, barricades on the road leading into the towns were removed to let dozens of buses in, AFP’s correspondent there said.

Just after midnight, the buses drove out of Fuaa and Kafraya and Thursday morning were at the village of Al-Eis, crossing from rebel-controlled territory into government-held areas in Aleppo province.

Armed HTS fighters stood on the roadside as the convoy of evacuees inched past, with pro-government militiamen and regular civilians sitting solemnly on board and staring ahead.

‘Entirely empty’

 Some 6,900 civilians and fighters were evacuated and the two towns were now “entirely empty of residents”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said on Thursday morning.

“As the buses entered regime-held areas, the regime started releasing detainees, as per the deal,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

According to HTS sources, the evacuation had been agreed in exchange for the release of 1,500 people from government-run jails.

An HTS source said the group’s fighters had entered the towns after the evacuation was complete.

Fuaa and Kafraya came under siege in 2015 as rebels and militants overran the surrounding province of Idlib, cutting off access to food and medicine.

Those forces had allowed the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to deliver aid to the towns in exchange for similar deliveries to two government-besieged towns near Damascus.

The four towns also saw coordinated evacuation deals.

In April 2017, thousands were bussed out of Fuaa and Kafraya in exchange for parallel evacuations from the towns of Zabadani and Madaya.

But a blast targeting a convoy of evacuees from Fuaa and Kafraya left 150 people dead, most of them civilians and including 72 children.

Some reports have suggested Tuesday’s deal also involves an agreement to spare Idlib a military offensive by the government.

The province borders Turkey to the northwest but is otherwise almost completely surrounded by government-held territory.

It is home to more than two million people, including Syrian civilians and rebels moved out of other opposition-held territory in surrender deals.

Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad that escalated into a devastating, complex war.

After losing swathes of territory to rebels in the early years of the conflict, Assad’s forces have managed to regain much of the country since Russian forces intervened in the government’s favour in 2015.

The retaking of second city Aleppo in 2016 marked a major turning point and earlier this year the government retook Eastern Ghouta, the last rebel-held area near the capital Damascus.

Both victories followed crushing government sieges and heavy bombardment.

In recent weeks Russia brokered a deal for rebels to hand over large parts of the southern province of Daraa, considered by many as the birthplace of the anti-Assad revolution.

Fighting has continued in the south though, with at least 15 civilians reported killed in air strikes in Daraa province on Wednesday. </s> Thousands of residents from two rebel-besieged loyalist towns in northwestern Syria have been evacuated to government-controlled territory as part of a deal that will see hundreds of detainees released from state-run prisons.

The last remaining residents of the predominantly Shia towns of al-Foua and Kefraya, estimated at 6,000, departed after more than a hundred buses arrived early on Thursday to transport them to government-held territory in Aleppo province.

On Wednesday, rebels from Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham - a group formerly linked to al-Qaeda - and Iran-backed forces reached an agreement to evacuate people in exchange for the release of more than 1,500 civilians and rebels held in state prisons.

Thursday's evacuation began with ambulances ferrying out the sick to a government checkpoint before 121 buses departed the villages, state-run al-Ikhbariya TV said.

The villages of northern Syria's Idlib province - the last major rebel stronghold in the country - had been under siege for more than three years.

A deal for the evacuation of residents from the two Shia-majority towns was first reached in April 2017 but had only partially materialised with only a group of people evacuated to government-held areas.

The April evacuation was halted after a blast killed 150 people, including 72 children.

Iran, which backs the government of President Bashar al-Assad against the mainly Sunni rebels and has expanded its military role in Syria, has long taken an interest in the fate of the Shia residents of the two towns.

In the past two years, thousands of people, mostly from rebel-held areas, have been forced to move to territories controlled by the rebels as part of evacuation deals.

The opposition has consistently maintained that such evacuation deals amount to forced demographic change and deliberate displacement of Sunni populations away from the country's urban centres.

They accuse Tehran of attempting to change the demographics in areas close to Damascus with the goal of partitioning the country.

Another opposition source said the resumption of talks was aimed at deterring a potential military campaign by pro-government forces on the two towns.

Idlib is part of a de-escalation deal - signed by Iran, Russia and Turkey - that calls for the cessations of hostilities between rebel groups and government forces.

The agreement, which initially included Eastern Ghouta in the northern Damascus countryside and Deraa province in the south, has already been broken with government forces, backed by Russian air support, in control of much of the territory. </s> A deal was reached on Tuesday 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 seven-year war.

Surrounded and bombed by hostile factions, the Shiite-majority 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 Tuesday 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 al-Sham, to regime territory in nearby Aleppo province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is a jihadist 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 told AFP.

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.

The source said 1,500 people would be freed from government-run jails.

The agreement has not been confirmed by any government involved, but Syrian state media reported Tuesday that it had preliminary information on a deal to free "thousands" of people from Fuaa and Kafraya.

The towns came under siege in 2015, as rebels and jihadists overran the surrounding province of Idlib.

That cut off access to food and medicine for their residents outside of United Nations aid deliveries.

The evacuation deal reached Tuesday is not the first for the two tiny towns.

In April 2017, thousands were bussed out Fuaa and Kafraya in exchange for parallel evacuations from two towns near Damascus that were being besieged by the government.

But a blast targeting a convoy of evacuees from Fuaa and Kafraya left 150 people dead, most of them civilians and including 72 children.

Traumatised residents left behind are now afraid that scenario might happen again.

"What are we going to do with our land and property? Oh my hometown," said a 42-year-old resident of Kafraya who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"I pray this will go well -- we still haven't forgotten those that died in the blast," he told AFP on Tuesday.

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests gainst President Bashar al-Assad that later spun out into full-fledged war.

Early on in the uprising, Turkey began providing support to rebel groups as Russia and Iran steadfastly backed their man in Damascus.

Those three countries have become the main powerbrokers in Syria, agreeing last year to create four "de-escalation" zones to pave the way for a nationwide ceasefire.

Idlib is part of one such zone. It borders Turkey to the northwest but is otherwise almost totally surrounded by regime territory, prompting fears the government would eventually attack it.

But the Observatory said the terms of the new Russia-Turkey deal included keeping the regime from waging a military operation there.

The Britain-based monitor said Turkish and Russian forces would also jointly patrol a part of the key M5 highway which cuts through Idlib.

The M5 connects Damascus to second city Aleppo in the north.

Analyst Nawar Oliver at the Turkey-based Omran Centre said the evacuation could pave the way for a grand bargain on Idlib.

"Change is inevitably coming to Idlib, but There are numerous predicaments that need to be resolved, including Fuaa and Kafraya, before reaching a final deal," Oliver told AFP.

Assad's forces have already recaptured two of the "de-escalation" zones this year: Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus and an area in central Homs.

They sealed their control over those areas with a blend of military pressure and negotiated surrenders of rebel groups there.

Using the same tactics, they are now close to seizing the third zone in southern Syria, which includes the key provinces of Daraa and Quneitra.

Heavy air strikes on Tuesday battered an area straddling the two governorates, killing 15 civilians across two towns, according to the Observatory.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain displaced in a part of Quneitra just a handful of kilometres (miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

But Israel, like Jordan to Syria's south, has kept the border closed to desperate displaced families fleeing the assault in recent weeks. </s> Dozens of buses on Wednesday entered two government loyalist towns under siege from rebels in the northwest province of Idlib, as part of a deal to evacuate residents to government-controlled areas, according to state news agency, SANA.

Some 6,000 people will leave, emptying out the mostly Shia towns of al-Foua and Kefraya, a commander in the regional alliance that backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Reuters news agency.

"What are we going to do with our land and property? Oh, my hometown," a 42-year-old who wished to remain anonymous told AFP news agency.

"I pray this will go well."

Rebels from Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham - a group formerly linked to al-Qaeda - and Iran-backed forces agreed to the deal to evacuate people in return for the release of more than 1,500 civilians and rebels in state prisons, sources said on Tuesday.

A deal for the evacuation of residents from the two Shia towns was first reached in April 2017 but had only partially materialised with only a group of people evacuated to government-held areas.

Politics of evacuation

The April evacuation was halted after a blast killed 150 people, including 72 children.

Iran, which backs Assad against the mainly Sunni rebels and has expanded its military role in Syria, has long taken an interest in the fate of the Shia in the two towns.

In the past two years, thousands of people, mostly from rebel-held areas, have been forced to move to territories controlled by the rebels as part of evacuation deals.

The opposition has consistently maintained that such evacuation deals amount to forced demographic change and deliberate displacement of Sunni populations away from the country's urban centres.

They accuse Tehran of attempting to change the demographics in areas close to Damascus with the goal of partitioning the country.

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Another opposition source said the resumption of talks was aimed at deterring a potential military campaign by pro-government forces on the two towns.

Idlib is part of a de-escalation deal - signed by Iran, Russia and Turkey - that calls for the cessations of hostilities between rebel groups and government forces.

The agreement, which initially included Eastern Ghouta in the northern Damascus countryside and Deraa province in the south, has already been broken with government forces, backed by Russian air support, in control of much of the territory. </s> An agreement brokered by Russia to evacuate neighborhoods in southern Damascus was reached Monday between the Syrian government and rebel groups controlling the enclave of southern Damascus.

The parties agreed to evacuate trapped civilians and fighters in southern Damascus in exchange for sending away civilians and fighters in the two towns of Fua'a and Kafriyeh, predominately-Shiite towns under the regime's control in rebel-held Idlib province.

Local sources said the agreement excluded IS militants in Yarmouk Camp.

Mattar Ismael, a journalist based in southern Damascus, told VOA that people started preparations to leave southern Damascus, and the first convoy of civilians is expected to be bused out Tuesday morning.

"The majority of civilians will go to Idlib and Jarablus in northern Syria, a small group chose to go to Deraa in the south, and there are a number of civilians who refused to leave," Ismael said.

He added that thousands of civilians live in areas under the control of Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the towns of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahm, and about 400 civilians are still in Yarmouk Camp under IS.

The FSA started handing over a number of its locations to the Russian Military Police, according to Syrian opposition news sources.

An estimated 3,500 civilians fled Yarmouk Camp in one week, many of whom are sleeping in the streets of neighboring areas.

"Those stark figures tell their own tragic story, of the destruction of a once-thriving refugee community, now reduced to abject, untold suffering," Chris Gunness, spokesperson for United Nations Agency to help Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera.

Yarmouk Camp was established for the Palestinian refugees who fled the 1948 war with Israel. According to UNRWA, the camp was home to about 160,000 Palestinians before Syria's conflict began in 2011.

Monday's agreement will also evacuate 1,500 civilians and militants in the towns of Fua'a and Kafriyeh in Idlib province, and release 80 civilians kidnapped in 2015 by former the al-Qaida-affiliated group, Tahrir.

The towns of Fua'a and Kafriyeh have been under siege since 2015, when rebel groups launched the Operation to Free Idlib Province against the Syrian government.

Despite the agreement, airstrikes and clashes did not stop in southern Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. </s> Residents in northwestern Syria evacuated two Shiite villages on Thursday morning after the Syrian government struck a deal to allow them to leave by pledging to release hundreds of rebel prisoners in exchange.

Some 120 buses carrying approximately 6,900 evacuees had left the towns of al-Foua and Kefraya, taking residents to nearby government-held territory in Aleppo province, a monitoring group said.

"The buses have left in the early hours of the morning and the two towns are completely empty now," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told news agency dpa.

The villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, located in Idlib province, had been under siege for several years by Sunni Islamist rebels operating in the area. The deal to completely evacuate the towns was brokered by Russia, the main ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Turkey, who is backing the Syrian opposition.

Idlib province is home to more than two million people, including Syrian civilians and rebels who had relocated there from other opposition-held territory in other surrender deals.

The government has not provided details on the release of 1,500 rebels from government-run jails, but according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the deal would also spare Idlib from future military offensives by the regime.

After recently recovering territory from rebels in the southwest, Assad is hoping to recover all of Syria through agreements such as the evacuation deal in al-Foua and Kefraya.

But activists and rights groups warned that such large-scale transfers may amount to forced displacement. The International Committee of the Red Cross demanded that any movement of people must be voluntary.

"Any evacuations, in Syria, or elsewhere, must follow basic humanitarian rules: Civilians can choose to stay or leave. Civilians must be protected against attacks — at all times. Evacuations are temporary — civilians have the right to return," the ICRC wrote on Twitter.

The conflict in Syria broke out in March 2011 with protests against Assad and his government. Since then, the conflict has killed an estimated 500,000 people and driven some 11 million from their homes.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> Hundreds leave rebel-held areas after vehicles set on fire on their way to collect villagers from Kefraya and Fua

The evacuation of east Aleppo has resumed, with about 350 people able to leave a rebel-held pocket of the city on Sunday, according to medical officials.

The move came despite the official postponement of evacuations of civilians and fighters from the devastated Syrian city and as the UN security council prepared to vote on a resolution to deploy observers to the city, with Syria-allied Russia giving cautious backing to the measure.

“Five buses carrying the evacuees arrived from besieged parts of east Aleppo,” said Ahmad al-Dbis, who heads a team of doctors and volunteers coordinating evacuations to rebel-held Khan al-Assal, from where they can travel on to other parts of Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Aleppo: Elegy for a doomed city whose history spans centuries Read more

“They were in a terrible state,” he said.

“They hadn’t eaten, they had nothing to drink, the children had caught colds, they were not even able to go to the toilet.”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the 350 were able to be evacuated after Russia and Turkey urged the Syrian regime to allow the convoy of buses to pass its final control point.

Earlier, a deal to free east Aleppo’s remaining civilians in exchange for sick and wounded people from two pro-government villages stalled after six buses sent to evacuate the loyalist areas were stopped and set ablaze.



The buses were intercepted in an area under the control of Jund al-Aqsa, a jihadi faction aligned to the Syrian opposition. The deal to partially lift a siege of the villages, Fua and Kefraya, had been opposed by the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which was largely responsible for a three-year siege of the majority-Shia enclaves.

The Syrian Observatory said on Monday morning that 10 buses had left Fua and Kefraya to take evacuees through rebel-held territory towards Aleppo.

Sabotage attempts have turned an urgent evacuation of up to 40,000 trapped civilians into a protracted series of negotiations, which allow trickles of refugees to leave before breaking down again.



Iran and the Syrian regime have been determined to use the fate of east Aleppo to settle accounts with the opposition elsewhere in the country, while jihadis who influence parts of the rebel movement have delayed the process to win concessions as their grip on northern Syria steadily slips.

Conflict News (@Conflicts) PHOTOS: Reports coming in that an "unknown rebel group" has attacked buses going to evacuate civilians from Kafraya and Fuah - @Ald_Aba pic.twitter.com/7xMPhumeu5

Fua and Kefraya have been key bargaining chips throughout the conflict. Both have been besieged, but not with the same result as east Aleppo. For the past 18 months, Iran has tried to broker a deal with the powerful Islamist militia Ahrar al-Sham which would allow the remaining villagers to be relocated to Zabadani and Madaya, between Damascus and the Lebanese border.

In return, Sunni residents of those towns would be sent to Fua and Kefraya, as part of a population swap that would change the geopolitics of the region and help build a Shia presence from the suburbs of Damascus into Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, and beyond to southern Lebanon.

The population swaps were not part of the original terms of the Aleppo evacuation deal, which were brokered between Russia and Turkey. However, soon after the deal was announced early last week, Iran made a series of its own demands.



In addition to the relocation of sectarian groups, Iran demanded the bodies of slain militia fighters that it had sent to Syria, including members of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iraqi militias. It also demanded information about any fighters that had been taken prisoner.



The chaos surrounding the evacuation deal underscores the stakes, with east Aleppo in its death throes and the six-year war beginning to lose steam for the first time. It also underlines how a splintered opposition cannot control all the elements in the fight against the Syrian leadership, even as tens of thousands of civilians remain cornered, many of them in the open with little food in the depths of winter.



A claim of responsibility was posted on social media, purportedly by a jihadi front group, which spoke of the trapped Shia communities in strident sectarian tones.



The Free Syria Army, an umbrella organisation of moderate rebel groups, said: “The people who resisted in Aleppo are paying the price of the irresponsible acts of a few. This was a reckless act endangering the lives of more than 50,000 people. It is a crime and a humiliation against our revolution and the resistance of the beseiged Aleppo people.”

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to secure a lifeline to those trapped in east Aleppo appeared to inch forwards after the UN security council agreed a compromise draft resolution on UN monitoring of evacuations. A vote will he be held on Monday, diplomats said.

“We expect to vote unanimously for this text tomorrow at 9 am (1400 GMT),” the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told reporters after more than three hours of negotiations.

The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, had earlier vowed to veto a French-drafted resolution, arguing that it did not account for the preparation needed for UN officials to be able to monitor evacuations.

Russia, which began air attacks on rebel-held territory in September 2015 in support of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has vetoed six security council resolutions on Syria since 2011.

“I think we have a good text, we agreed to vote tomorrow morning,” Churkin told reporters after agreeing the compromise draft.

The French-drafted resolution had asked for the UN to “redeploy … humanitarian staff already on the ground to carry out adequate, neutral monitoring, direct observation, and to report on evacuations from besieged parts of Aleppo and protection of civilians inside Aleppo”.

It also urged: “The evacuations of civilians must be voluntary and to final destinations of their choice, and protection must be provided to all civilians who choose or who have been forced to be evacuated and those who opt to remain in their homes.”



The fate of more than 500 men who were detained inside Aleppo, or arrested at checkpoints as they tried to leave remains unknown, and rights groups have expressed serious fears for their safety.



By some estimates, up to 80,000 people have left east Aleppo in recent days, most crossing into the regime-held west of the city. Around 8,000 people were evacuated to the north-west Aleppo countryside as part of the evacuation deal. Opposition fighters were among the first to leave the city. Such a move had been central to the drafted terms, but was also being seen by some of the trapped civilians as an abandonment. </s> Buses began evacuating fighters and civilians from two besieged pro-regime towns in Syria early on Thursday morning under a deal that will allow thousands to leave after three years of encirclement.

Fuaa and Kafraya are the last remaining areas under siege in Syria, where government forces have also repeatedly used crippling blockades during the last seven years of war.

The Shiite-majority towns have been besieged for years by rebels and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist alliance led by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

Surrounded and bombed by hostile factions, the towns became a rallying cry for the government and its ally Iran, as well as a playing card in callous rebel hands.

A deal reached on Tuesday between regime-backer Russia and rebel-ally Turkey would see all the residents taken to government-held territory in exchange for prisoner releases from regime jails.

Starting on Wednesday morning, a series of barricades on the road leading into the towns were removed to let dozens of buses in, AFP's correspondent there said.

All residents -- about 6,900 people including fighters and civilians -- are expected to be ferried out, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor and an HTS source.

Just after midnight, buses drove out of Fuaa and Kafraya and into a staging ground in the nearby Suwaghiya area, an AFP correspondent there said.

Armed HTS fighters stood on the roadside as the convoy of evacuees inched past, with pro-government militiamen and regular civilians sitting solemnly on board and staring ahead.

The backs of the busses were piled high with suitcases and duffel bags.

"Thirty-two buses have left so far in a first wave of the evacuations. They form about a third of the total that will leave in the operation, which is expected to be done by Thursday morning," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

There was no immediate confirmation of the departures from state media, which had earlier reported dozens of buses and ambulances entering the towns.

Fuaa and Kafraya came under siege in 2015 as rebels and jihadists overran the surrounding province of Idlib, cutting off access to food and medicine.

The United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent delivered humanitarian assistance there in tit-for-tat operations with two government-besieged towns near Damascus.

The four towns also saw coordinated evacuation deals.

In April 2017, thousands were bussed out of Fuaa and Kafraya in exchange for parallel evacuations from the towns of Zabadani and Madaya.

But a blast targeting a convoy of evacuees from Fuaa and Kafraya left 150 people dead, most of them civilians and including 72 children.

Traumatised residents left behind have said they are afraid that scenario might repeat itself with the new evacuations.

Security was tight as the buses very slowly exited the besieged towns, with HTS fighters surrounding the evacuee convoy.

Just before midnight, ambulances carrying 15 sick and wounded residents were let out first and sped in the dark towards the Al-Eis crossing, which connects rebel-held Idlib to regime-controlled parts of Aleppo, AFP's correspondent said.

An HTS source said it was a "good will gesture" ahead of the full evacuation.

According to HTS, more than 100 buses would evacuate 6,900 people from Fuaa and Kafraya in exchange for the release of 1,500 people from government-run jails.

There was no immediate word on the prisoner releases on Thursday morning.

The deal, according to the Britain-based Observatory, would also guarantee that Idlib would be spared a military offensive by the regime.

The northwestern province borders Turkey to the northwest but is otherwise almost totally surrounded by regime territory.

It is home to more than two million people, including Syrian civilians and rebels moved out of other opposition-held territory in surrender deals.

Activists and rights groups have warned such population transfers may amount to forced displacement.

As preparations were underway earlier on Wednesday for the transfers from Fuaa and Kafraya, the International Committee of the Red Cross insisted any movement must be voluntary.

"Any evacuations, in Syria, or elsewhere, must follow basic humanitarian rules: Civilians can choose to stay or leave. Civilians must be protected against attacks -- at all times. Evacuations are temporary -- civilians have the right to return," the ICRC wrote on Twitter.

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad that later spun out into full-fledged war. </s> The blast, which struck buses of people who were leaving their towns as part of a rebel-regime swap, also injured 55 others in Rashidin, a suburb of Aleppo in northwestern Syria, according to Syria Civil Defense, also known the White Helmets.

The convoy of buses, which were parked at the time, was carrying thousands of people from two regime-held but rebel-besieged villages in northwestern Syria, state-run media reported. Video shown on Syrian state-run television showed heavily damaged and burned buses parked on the side of a road. People walked outside the buses, surveying the damage as well as bodies lying on the roadway and a grass median.

The evacuees, from the mainly pro-regime Shia villages of Al-Fu’ah and Kafriya, were bound for regime-held parts of Aleppo. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported the convoy continued, and the first buses arrived late Saturday in Aleppo. The buses headed to the Jebrin area for a temporary housing center equipped with food and medical supplies, SANA said. The rebel group Ahrar al-Sham tweeted that some of its members died in the blast. They were at the site to ensure the convoy’s passage, Ahrar al-Sham said. The group said it was investigating to find out who was responsible. The evacuees had been allowed to leave their villages this week as part of a Shia-Sunni exchange agreement between the Syrian government and insurgents who have been fighting a civil war for six years. As part of the deal, government forces are allowing thousands of rebels and civilians to leave two towns in southwest Syria: Madaya and Zabadani, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Madaya and Zabadani have been under the control of anti-government fighters but facing siege from forces loyal to the regime.

State-run media: Rigged car was disguised

 The explosion happened as both sets of evacuees were stopped in separate locations outside Aleppo. Each were heading to areas controlled by forces friendly to them.

The explosives-rigged car had been packed with children’s food supplies, perhaps to disguise it, a correspondent with SANA reported.

The convoy that departed Al-Fu’ah and Kafriya is carrying 5,000 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Thousands were leaving Madaya and Zabadani, including more than 2,000 rebel fighters, their families and other civilians, the monitoring group said.

The deal was brokered by Iran and Qatar, Agence France-Presse reported.
The evacuations of Shia towns Al-Fu'ah and Kafriya in the northern Idlib Governorate begin, as part of a deal between rebel forces and the Syrian government.