Syria govt, rebels reach evacuation deal in southern Damascus!

DAMASCUS: The Syrian government and rebels have reached a deal to evacuate opposition fighters from an area of southern Damascus near the site of a regime offensive against militants, state media said on Sunday.
The announcement comes more than a week into a regime assault to oust IS group fighters from the capital’s southern suburbs, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk. On Sunday, state news agency SANA said a deal had been reached to evacuate opposition fighters and members of their families from rebel-held areas east of Yarmuk.
SANA reported “an agreement reached between the Syrian government and terrorist groups in southern Damascus, in the areas of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem”, using its usual term for all rebels.
The deal gives fighters the choice between leaving the area with their families or handing over their weapons and staying, SANA said.
The reported deal is the latest in a string of such agreements that have seen the regime retake areas near the capital after rebel withdrawals.
Such a deal around Yalda could allow the regime to deploy forces on the eastern edges of Yarmuk after other units advanced towards the camp from the west, a Britain-based war monitor said.
Over the past two days, regime forces have retaken large parts of the district of Qadam on Yarmuk’s western flank, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.
Behind the frontlines, an AFP correspondent on an army tour of the area west of Yarmuk heard sniper fire, as well as heavy regime air strikes and shelling.
At the devastated Qadam train station, soldiers took a break inside one of the train’s carriages, one peering out from a broken window.
Another lit some firewood to boil some water for tea, as a thick column of black smoke billowed up into the sky not far off.
On Sunday, regime warplanes pounded Yarmuk and the neighbouring district of Hajar al Aswad, the Observatory said.
SANA said regime forces continued advancing in Hajar al Aswad.
Yarmuk and its surroundings are now the militant group’s largest urban redoubt in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, after IS lost most of the swathes of territory it once held in both countries.
The militants have held parts of Yarmuk and Hajar al Aswad since 2015, and overran Qadam in a surprise assault last month.
On Saturday, IS seized a hospital and surrounding buildings on the eastern edges of Yarmuk as it tried to push towards Yalda, the Observatory said.
The announcement of a deal for Yalda and nearby areas comes after the regime reconquered what was once a key rebel bastion east of Damascus earlier this month. — AFP