Baladi - Agencies
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 jihadists, state media said Sunday.
The announcement comes more than a week into a regime assault to oust Islamic State 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.
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.
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.
On Sunday, regime war planes pounded Yarmuk and the neighbouring district of Hajar al-Aswad, it said.
Yarmuk and its surroundings are now the jihadist 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 jihadists have held parts of Yarmuk and Hajar al-Aswad since 2015, and overran Qadam in a surprise assault last month.
At least 85 regime fighters and 74 IS jihadists have been killed in ten days of fighting in southern Damascus, the Observatory says.
Source: Daily Mail, by AFP