Beirut: Evacuations of Daesh terrorists from their final stronghold in Syria’s capital ended on Monday, bringing Bashar Al Assad closer to a major milestone in the seven-year war.
With a blend of military pressure and negotiated withdrawals, Al Assad has flushed rebels out of key territory around Damascus in recent months, leaving a last pocket of Daesh fighters in the capital’s south.
His troops and allied Palestinian militiamen have fought since April 19 to recapture the area covering the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk and the adjacent districts of Qadam, Tadamun and Hajar Al Aswad.
A ceasefire at the weekend ushered in a brief wave of evacuations that wrapped up at around midday on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The evacuations are over, after 32 buses took 1,600 people including Daesh fighters and their relatives out of southern Damascus on Sunday and Monday,” said Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman.
He said Syrian regime troops then entered Daesh-held parts of Yarmouk for combing operations.
Abdul Rahman said Daesh sleeper cells may remain in Yarmouk, however, and further military operations could lie ahead before the area is declared secure.
Under the deal, the first buses of Daesh fighters and civilians left southern Damascus early Sunday morning and a second batch evacuated the following night.
The Britain-based monitor said they headed towards Syria’s Badiyah, a vast stretch of desert in the country’s centre and east where Daesh still controls some territory.
Once Yarmouk and adjacent areas are under its control, Syria’s regime will have fully secured Damascus and its outskirts from any military threat for the first time since 2012.
The regime has not confirmed any deal with Daesh.
But in a first official comment on evacuations, a military source said Monday that a brief ceasefire had allowed some civilians to be transferred out overnight.
The source told regime news agency SANA that women and children were bussed out, but pledged the regime would resume its operations at noon (0900 GMT) on Monday.
AFP’s correspondent in Damascus saw black smoke emerging from the capital’s southern skyline around that time.
The latest evacuations, according to the Observatory, leave the regime in control of Tadamun, Qadam and Hajar Al Aswad.
But the secretive nature of the withdrawals meant it was not immediately clear how many Daesh militants or civilians — if any — remained in Yarmouk, Observatory chief Abdul Rahman said.
The evacuations had been taking place with no media present.
“The Syrian regime does not admit to negotiating with Daesh and wants to make sure the convoy is not targeted by the coalition led by Washington,” he said.
Last year, Daesh terrorists and relatives were evacuated from an area on the Lebanese-Syrian border under a deal between Daesh on one side, and Syria’s regime and its powerful Lebanese ally Hezbollah on the other.
The Damascus regime was fiercely criticised over the agreement, which also enraged the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against Daesh in Syria since 2014.
The coalition sent aeroplanes to shadow last year’s convoy, conducting bombing raids to block it from reaching Daesh-held territory.
Yarmouk was the largest Palestinian camp in Syria and was put under crippling regime siege in 2012 — making it one of the longest besiegements of Syria’s war.
Attacks by Syria’s regime, as well as rebel and extremist infighting, have ravaged the district for years.
The thriving 160,000-strong population has dwindled to just several hundred people.
Before launching its anti-Daesh push in Yarmouk, Syria’s regime managed to clear out other rebels from the area with military drives and evacuation deals.
More than 1,000 Islamist fighters and civilians left Qadam in March for opposition territory in northern Syria.
The following month, Al Assad’s forces began the assault specifically targeting Daesh.
Those operations have killed more than 250 pro-regime forces and 233 Daesh terrorists, as well as more than 60 civilians, according to the Observatory.
