AMMAN — Syrian army units backed by Iranian-backed
militias resumed the shelling of a rebel enclave in southern Syria on Sunday
after the collapse of Russia-brokered deal to allow the government to reinstate
full control over the area.
اضافة اعلان
Russian generals brokered the deal late on Tuesday to avert
bloody urban warfare after the heaviest
bombardment by elite army units of the rebel core of the city of Daraa in a two-month siege
that has forced many of the 50,000 inhabitants to flee.
The deal collapsed on Friday after disagreements over the
extent of army control and disarming former rebels. The area is the birthplace
of peaceful protests in 2011 against President Bashar Al-Assad and his family
that were met by force before spreading across the country and evolving into
civil war.
Rebels and local elders refused new army demands on Friday
for the army to spread checkpoints across residential neighborhoods of Daraa
Al-Balad and conduct house-to-house searches, saying the deal allowed for a
less pervasive presence when it falls under complete state civilian
administration.
They also said Russian military police should maintain
patrols to bar militias who had encircled the enclave from entering.
"These are impossible new demands presented by the
regime and the Russians. We reached a dead-end," Adnan Al-Masalameh, the
spokesman for the Daraa Al-Balad negotiation committee, told Reuters.
Government forces, aided by Russian air power and militias,
retook Daraa province in 2018, and Moscow assured Israel and the United States
at the time that it would prevent Iranian-backed militias encroaching on the
border zone.
That deal forced thousands of Western-backed rebels to hand
over heavy weapons, but kept Assad's forces from entering Daraa Al-Balad.
The army said on Sunday they had prepared buses for the
evacuation of rebels opposed to the deal to a part of northwest Syria under
control of Turkey-backed rebels.
"We insist on full army control and no return back to
the state of lawlessness and chaos that prevailed," an army spokesman
said, accusing rebels of reneging on their pledges.
Several thousand former rebels, civilians, and their
families insisted they would only leave to Turkey and Jordan, countries seen as
safe sanctuaries, local negotiators said.
The enclave and other towns in southern Syria have, since
the state regained control of the province, held sporadic protests against
Assad's authoritarian rule that are rare in areas under state control.
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