Posted on 12/25/2015 9:42:35 AM PST by amorphous
Two thousand Syrian Islamist fighters are expected to be evacuated soon from besieged, rebel-held areas of southern Damascus in a deal brokered by the United Nations, a Hezbollah TV station said on Friday.
The deal marks a success for the government of President Bashar al-Assad, increasing its chances of reasserting control over a strategic area just 4 km (2.5 miles) south of the center of the capital.
It also highlights the increasing efforts of the U.N. and foreign governments to bring about local ceasefires and safe-passage agreements as steps toward the wider goal of ending Syria's civil war, in which more than 250,000 people have been killed in nearly five years of fighting.
The besieged militants include fighters of Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's offshoot in Syria. Hezbollah's Manar TV said 18 buses had arrived to start taking them and 1,500 family members to areas under the control of IS and other rebel groups. It was not clear whether the buses were provided by the U.N. or by the Syrian army.
The rebels' capitulation was forced by a government siege over several years that squeezed the flow of food and humanitarian aid, starving many people to death in what rights group Amnesty International has described as war crimes.
Manar said the fighters would also be handing in their heavy weapons to the Syrian army under what it said was a multi-party deal under U.N. auspices.
Manar is the official mouthpiece of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite group which is a major ally of Assad and has sent its forces to fight alongside government troops.
It later said the evacuation "awaited completion of some arrangements".
Separately, the Syrian army said on Friday it had fought its way close to the strategic, rebel-held Aleppo-Damascus highway – its latest gain in a major offensive supported by Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and Russian air power.
The government and its allies are pressing toward the northwestern province of Idlib, which borders Turkey and is controlled by a coalition of Islamist groupings called Jaish al Fateh. Its capture would deal a major blow to the insurgents, who have been losing ground since Russia launched its aerial bombing campaign in support of the Assad government on Sept. 30.
LOCAL DEALS
In a separate development, a British-based monitoring group said the last of some 200 Nusra Front fighters operating in Deraa province in the south had been given safe passage by the Syrian authorities to leave for rebel-controlled Idlib.
Damascus agreed to the move in return for the release of Iranian officers captured by Nusra while fighting alongside the Syrian army, said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The south Damascus and Deraa deals followed an earlier local truce in Zabadani on the Lebanese border, and an agreement allowing rebels to leave a besieged part of the city of Homs, which the U.N. said could help pave the way for a nationwide truce.
The U.N. Security Council on Dec. 18 unanimously approved a resolution endorsing an international road map for a Syrian peace process, a rare show of consensus among major powers.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Thursday that Damascus was ready to take part in peace talks in Geneva and hoped that the dialogue would help it form a national unity government. The U.N. plans to convene the Geneva talks toward the end of January.
Read more at https://www.trunews.com/u-n-brokered-deal-for-buses-to-ship-out-2000-besieged-isis-fighters/#rQ3JHgyLvsTYioc6.99
Child of the 60’s: what you have said is the truth. The sad fact however is that if ISIS is completely destroyed...there may be 50 or more other terrorist groups in the Middle East who will continue the efforts of the Death Cult. I don’t know that Western Civilization is willing to win the war of the clash of Civilizations. How does the West win such a war when the only real method will be genocide of the region or a 500 year deployment of a massive police force in the region.?!
F$ck the UN!
Of course there were also those who received their just reward at the hands of US soldiers in the field.
I'm not saying it was perfect, but it worked and worked well. Nazism, by all practical measurements, has been eradicated; and the German people eventually became our friends and partners in a more peaceful world afterwards.
It worked in Homs a few weeks ago. The Syrian Gov now has control of most of the city and the countryside in that area, that sits across the critical supply route for Damascus.
The Russians are claiming they killed Zahran Alloush, head of the powerful jihadist group Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) in an airstrike this week.
This is/was the guy who put together and was running the coalition of different extremist groups fighting against Syrian gov forces west of Damascus.
Now might be a good time to leave, before the groups all start fighting each other.
Isolationism of a sort might help in the long run. First off all civilized western nations should lock down their borders completely from anti western ME countries.
Sorry folks, don’t care how nice the Democrats say you are, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, et all is allowed in a western country except on high level business. NO other visas or immigration of any kind. None of the above is allowed on a western based airline. And so on.
Does anyone in the west have the guts to do this? No. So far most of the west has not even demonstrated a half ass acknowledgement that this war is being waged upon civilized nations.
Child of the 60’s, that makes sence. Prevent the bad guys from coming over here. Thank you for your response. Merry Christmas!
Ping.
Assad created ISIS to discredit decent freedom fighters in Syria,discredit their cause and bring in Russian support. If they were legitimately opposed to ISIS, thus filth in human form would die.
“Dead men don’t bite “ - Billy Bones
If I had it my way, each bus would have 100 lbs of C-4 embedded in it! Timed to explode such that no one would know how/when/where!
Couldn’t be the same group that is taking organs for the black market
ISIS issues fatwa on organ harvesting, rape of slaves
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3376706/posts
ISIS sanctions organ harvesting from living ‘apostates’… even if it kills them
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3376628/posts
Spec Ops found out about it going on.
ping
UN is also the enemy
SO let me see id I’ve got this right - like if we were in WW11
A platoon of Nazi soldiers - who have been beheading, burning, raping to their hearts content - are no beaten to the point of submission-
So we’ll just bus ‘em on outta harms way and replenish some other NAZI forces with them?
Do I have that right?
Very possibly.
Do you think that they will have falafels and mint tea on the buses?
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