group that has pledged loyalty to it holds a small enclave in the southwest.

Islamic State also captured a third of neighboring Iraq in 2014 but was largely defeated there last year.

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FIRING IN CELEBRATION

A temporary humanitarian ceasefire had been in place since Sunday night in al-Hajar al-Aswad to allow women, children and old people to leave the area, state media said early on Monday.

Army soldiers fired into the air in celebration and held Syrian flags, against a smashed cityscape of shattered buildings and widespread destruction, state television footage showed.

Buildings and walls were pocked-marked from bullets and shell-fire, metal satellite dishes were bent and scorched, and the dome of a mosque had a gaping hole near its base.

On Sunday, a war monitor said fighters had begun withdrawing from thearea towards Islamic State territory in eastern Syria under a surrender deal, but state media said fighting continued.

The war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Monday that buses had already started leaving south Damascus for Islamic State areas in eastern Syria.

A U.S.-led military coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq said in an emailed statement to Reuters it was “aware of reports of an evacuation near Yarmouk and south Damascus” and was monitoring the situation.

While Assad has vowed to win back “every inch” of Syria, the map of the conflict suggests a complicated time ahead.

Slideshow (9 Images)

The U.S. military is in much of the east and northeast, which is controlled by Kurdish groups that want autonomy from Damascus. It has used force to