Blasts as Syrian evacuations begin
Print Edition
A RARE United Nations-backed deal between Syria’s warring sides saw hundreds of fighters and civilians evacuate three towns yesterday, as bomb blasts in the government-held city of Homs killed at least 14 people.
President Bashar Assad has agreed to several ceasefires with rebel groups in the past but yesterday’s evacuation plan was one of the most elaborate in the nearly five-year war.
The UN has been pushing for such local deals as global powers pursue wider efforts to resolve a conflict that has left over 250,000 dead and forced millions from their homes.
More than 450 fighters and civilians, including wounded, began quitting three flashpoint areas in Syria as part of a six-month truce reached in September. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, more than 120 fighters and wounded yesterday began leaving Zabadani, the last rebel bastion on Syria’s border with Lebanon.
They were to travel across the border to Lebanon and fly from Beirut to Turkey, before traveling back into opposition-held areas in Syria, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Another 335 people, including civilians, began traveling from two regime-controlled villages in northwest Syria to other government areas, also via the neighboring countries, he said.
Residents of the mainly Shiite villages of Fuaa and Kafraya were to cross into Turkey, then fly into Beirut and travel overland into Damascus.
It is the first time the neighboring countries are involved in such an evacuation deal.
The next part of the deal, according to the Britain-based Observatory, would see humanitarian aid delivered into the towns. The Observatory’s Abdel Rahman said Assad’s regime was keen to reach such agreements as part of its “efforts to secure the capital by seizing control of rebel-held areas or through ceasefire deals.”
Al-Manar, a Lebanese television station affiliated with pro-Assad Shiite group Hezbollah, broadcast live footage of the evacuation of Zabadani.
Amid the ruins of bombed-out buildings, dozens of bearded fighters wearing military-style fatigues boarded large buses.
In one of the most significant such deals so far, anti-government rebels earlier this month quit the last opposition-held district of the central city of Homs, once dubbed “the capital of the revolution.”
But violence has since rocked the city. Yesterday, at least 14 people were killed and dozens wounded in large bomb blasts in the city’s al-Zahraa neighborhood, state television reported.
It said two explosions caused by car bombs and a blast caused by a suicide attacker wearing an explosives-laden belt hit al-Zahraa’s main square.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
