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4,000, half of them hard boyz, to leave Damascus suburbs
BEIRUT: Some 4,000 people, half of them fighters, will leave three besieged districts south of Syria’s capital at the weekend as part of a landmark cease-fire, sources told AFP Friday. Daesh and its rival, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front, will reportedly quit the districts of Qadam, Hajar Al-Aswad and the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmuk.“An agreement was reached whereby 4,000 fighters and civilians, including members of Al-Nusra and Daesh, would leave” the neighborhoods on Saturday, one government official close to the negotiations said. They would then be transported to the northern cities of Raqa, held by Daesh and Marea which is controlled by extremists and Al-Nusra, the official said.
It will be the first time in more than two years that market goods have been able to be sent in to the three southern districts, which have been under a crippling government siege. Daesh attacked the Yarmuk Palestinian camp in April, fighting Al-Nusra units there for control. The militants then overran parts of Qadam in August after launching an attack from their base in nearby Hajar Al-Aswad. Their advance into Qadam had brought them closer than ever to central Damascus. The cease-fire deal comes after two months of intense negotiations between Syria’s government and district leaders, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one local leader in Qadam said: “Every fighter will be allowed to leave with his family and one suitcase and his personal weapon.” The areas are already in the process of being demilitarized. Eighteen buses had also crossed into the neighborhood in preparation for Saturday’s evacuation, which would include “2,000 combatants, mostly fighters,” he added. Mohammad Al-Omari, a representative of Syria’s reconciliation ministry, told AFP that the “first phase of the deal will have a positive effect on Yarmuk and all of the southern areas.” He said he hoped a “larger reconciliation process” would allow some 1.8 million people to return to the southern suburbs of Damascus. A UN representative in Damascus told AFP the UN had no role in the negotiations or developments in the southern suburbs of the capital. Posted by: Steve White 2015-12-26 |
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