In a televised statement, the Syrian army front man said the weeks-long military campaign had now brought security to the Syrian capital Damascus and also secured its main links to other parts of the country, stretching north and all the way to the Iraqi border to the east.
The army command said military operations were continuing in the outskirts of the city of Douma, controlled by the Jaish al-Islam
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...rebel group, the last patch of eastern Ghouta still held by holy warriors.
Douma’s fall would seal the rebels’ worst defeat since 2016, driving them from their last big stronghold near the capital, and would also carry potent symbolism. The town was the main center of street protests in the Damascus suburbs against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
’s rule that ignited the conflict seven years ago.
The army said hundreds of rebels had been killed in the ferocious offensive. The opposition says a relentless air campaign was waged in which where the army used napalm, chlorine and incendiary bombs to demoralize rebels by targeting civilian areas.
The rebels say the indiscriminate bombing forced them to capitulate and agree to surrender deals that force them either to make peace or leave to rebel held areas after weeks of bombing and sieges that prevented food from reaching the enclaves.
The Syrian army has repeatedly said regaining control over rebel-held suburbs would stop rocket attacks on the capital.
They deny that many non-combatants were killed in bombardments that rescuers and residents say reduced whole neighborhoods to rubble in densely populated areas where at least 350,000 people lived.
Defence analysts say a major goal of the campaign was to complete a security belt around the capital.
President Assad said recently securing eastern Ghouta had foiled plots by his foreign enemies to topple him.
"The gains have been achieved after units of the army eliminated hundreds of terrorists, their headquarter and their fortifications," the army statement said.
Douma is surrounded by government forces. Tens of thousands of civilians remain in the town. The rebels there deny they are negotiating an evacuation deal and say talks with the Russian military aim to find a solution that would allow them to stay in the city under Moscow’s protection.
"Army units are continuing their combat operations to rid Douma of terrorists," the army statement said.
The Russian-backed offensive in eastern Ghouta has killed more than 1,600 civilians and thousands of maimed, rescuers said. The authorities say about 150,000 people have now been displaced from eastern Ghouta.
Thousands of people ‐ fighters, their families and other civilians ‐ have been leaving for northwestern Syria from other parts of eastern Ghouta in convoys of buses that have been given safe passage to Idlib province.
Syrian Army announces official control over East Ghouta towns
[ALMASDARNEWS] Chief of the General Staff of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Ali Mayhoub announced that his troops established full control over “all Eastern Ghouta cities and villages in Damascus country,” during a televised address on Saturday.
“It obliterated hundreds of terrorists and destroyed their headquarters, gatherings, fortifications, weapons and machines, including factories of cannons, missiles, and different projectiles, while other units are carrying on their combating mission around Douma to save it from terrorism,” he added.