Southern Damascus evacuation deal reached

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A deal was reached on Sunday for the evacuation of rebels and their families from three towns south of the capital Damascus, as a prelude to the entry of the Syrian army to those areas, Syrian state TV reported.

The deal was reached in the towns of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem on the southern outskirts of Damascus. It includes the evacuation of rebels and their families who refuse to reconcile with the government to rebel-held areas in northern Syria, while the militants who want to remain in the three towns will have to reconcile with the government and hand over their weapons.

The evacuees will only be allowed to have light weapons, said the report, adding that the Syrian government's institutions will return to the three towns after the process is completed.

Syrians riding on a motorcycle through rubble following air strikes on the town market in Zamalka, one of the few remaining rebel-held pockets in Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. /AFP Photo

Still, the report spelled no detail on the exact time of the evacuation, noting that the process will start once the arrangements are completed.

Those areas have for long been out of the conflict zone, as the Syrian army concluded a truce with various rebel groups in these towns in 2014, and since then the Syrian government has been trying to turn the deal from a truce to reconciliation, which will allow the government to enter those areas and take control.

The deal comes as the Syrian army launched a crushing offensive against rebel-held areas south of Damascus. A day earlier, the Syrian army fully secured four neighborhoods south of Damascus after battles with the ISIL militants and closing in on a key bastion of the terror-designated group in that part of the capital.

The Syrian army fully captured the neighborhoods of al-Qadam, Mazaniyeh, Asali, and Jourah, from ISIL around the Hajar al-Aswad and the Yarmouk Camp areas, as those two areas are the major bastions of ISIL south of Damascus, according to the report.

ISIL lost its major stronghold late last year when the Syrian army captured the city of Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria, as well as large swathes of the Syrian desert near the Iraqi border. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also stripped ISIL of its de facto capital of Raqqa north of Syria.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency