BEIRUT — Syrian regime forces Wednesday entered part of a southern
city retaken from holdout rebels under a ceasefire deal brokered by government
ally Russia, official media and a war monitor said.
اضافة اعلان
Daraa province and its capital of the same name, the cradle of Syria's
uprising, returned to government control in 2018 under a previous Moscow-backed
ceasefire.
But rebels remained in some areas, including the southern part of the city
called
Daraa Al-Balad.
Regime forces have stepped up their
shelling of that area since late July
and imposed a crippling siege on its residents, sparking retaliation from
fighters inside.
Russian mediation efforts throughout August led to the evacuation of dozens
of opposition fighters to Syria's rebel-held north, and a final ceasefire deal
on Wednesday last week.
State news agency SANA said army units on Wednesday entered Daraa Al-Balad.
They "hoisted the national flag and started setting up positions and
combing the area towards announcing it free of terrorism," it said, using
its usual term for rebels.
The latest version of the surrender deal provides for Russian military
police to deploy around Daraa Al-Balad and the Syrian army to set up
checkpoints inside.
It will also allow fighters and young men who avoided mandatory military
service to sign up to stay in the city.
Pro-Damascus radio broadcaster Sham FM reported that around 900 men had
already signed up to do this.
Those who refuse the terms of the surrender are expected to be evacuated at
a later date.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor with
sources inside Syria, said the army was expected to deploy at nine positions
inside Daraa Al-Balad.
It was also to inspect homes inside the former opposition neighborhood and
continue registering people who wished to stay.
The Observatory and activists from Daraa however said dozens of opposition
fighters were still present in a district and inside a displacement camp on the
edges of Daraa Al-Balad, awaiting the outcome of ongoing negotiations about
their fate.
Activists now expect regime forces to seek to fully retake other patches of
the Daraa countryside that have remained outside their control since the 2018
deal.
Although bombings and assassinations had remained rife around the province
since then, the escalation in Daraa Al-Balad this summer has been the most
violent in three years.
It has killed 22 civilians including six children, as well as 26 members of
the regime forces and 17 opposition fighters, the observatory says.
The fighting has caused more than 38,000 people to flee the southern half of
the city, the United Nations has said, amid international alarm over
deteriorating living conditions inside.
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
