Baladi - Agencies
Syrian rebels have agreed to withdraw from a sensitive area bordering the occupied Golan Heights, a monitor and opposition source said Thursday, the latest in a series of deals expanding regime control over key territory.
The agreement follows another deal that saw thousands of residents evacuated Thursday morning from two pro-regime towns in northern Syria long besieged by hardline rebels.
With a mix of military force and negotiated deals, Assad forces this month captured more than 90 percent of Daraa, the southern province where protests against Assad first erupted in 2011.
Assad forces then began intensely bombing rebels in Quneitra, a crescent-shaped province wedged between Daraa and the buffer zone with the Israel-occupied Golan to the west.
Under pressure, rebels have agreed to hand over Quneitra and the buffer to government forces, an opposition negotiator and a monitoring group told AFP on Thursday.
A member of the rebel delegation to the talks said that a preliminary ceasefire agreement on Quneitra had been reached with Moscow but said it was unclear when it would be implemented.
As part of it, he told AFP, Syrian government forces accompanied by Russian military police would enter the buffer zone with the Golan.
Assad forces backed by Russia's warplanes launched brutal military campaign on the Syrian South, during which hundreds of civilians have been killed, and thousands have fled Daraa towards the Jordanian borders and Israeli frontier, seeking safety from the Assad and Russia's bombardment.
Source: AFP