AMMAN, March 21 (Reuters) - A Russian-brokered deal has been reached to evacuate a Syrian rebel group from a town in Eastern Ghouta to opposition-held northwestern Syria in the first such deal in the last remaining rebel bastion near the capital, two opposition sources said on Wednesday.

They said fighters from Ahrar al Sham rebel group in control of the besieged town of Harasta had agreed to lay down their arms in return for safe passage to insurgent-controlled areas and an offer to be pardoned under local reconciliation terms with the authorities for those who want to stay.

The Syrian army and allied forces have recaptured 70 percent of the territory that was under insurgent control in the enclave and after weeks of bombardment residents are fleeing by the thousands.

The relentless Syrian army assault backed by Russian air power that began last month has killed hundreds of people, according to rescuers and a monitor.

The evacuation deals come after years of siege and bombardment that have been a major strategy by the Syrian army to force rebels to surrender and help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recover all of Aleppo, Homs and other areas. "The deal has been finalised and it could come into effect soon after a ceasefire is announced as early as Wednesday," said one official familiar with the talks that have been going on for several days.

It would begin with an evacuation of injured civilians, he added.

The predicament of hundreds of rebels trapped in Harasta, one of the main towns in eastern Ghouta, worsened after the army succeeded earlier this month in splintering Ghouta into three besieged zones, cutting off Harasta from other areas.

Last Sunday, the Syrian army had given the rebels of Harasta area an ultimatum to withdraw, state media said.

The Harasta deal will pile pressure on the two main rebel groups - Failaq al-Rahman in the southern pocket and Jaish al-Islam in the northern enclave - to also reach understandings.

They have however publicly said they reject Russia's offer to leave the enclave.

The most likely option was however the transfer of Failaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam fighters to opposition-held areas in northern and southern Syria respectively, a rebel official familiar with the situation on the ground said.

The defeat in eastern Ghouta would mark the worst setback for the anti-Assad rebellion since the opposition was driven from eastern Aleppo in late 2016 after a similar campaign of siege, bombing, ground assaults and the promise of safe passage out.</s>Syrian government forces pounded the rebel enclave of Ghouta anew in an effort to slice the territory in two, what may amount to the opposition's biggest defeat since 2016. Matthew Larotonda reports.</s>AMMAN (Reuters) - A Russian-brokered deal has been reached to evacuate a Syrian rebel group from a town in Eastern Ghouta to opposition-held northwestern Syria in the first such deal in the last remaining rebel bastion near the capital, two opposition sources said on Wednesday.

They said fighters from Ahrar al Sham rebel group in control of the besieged town of Harasta had agreed to lay down their arms in return for safe passage to insurgent-controlled areas and an offer to be pardoned under local reconciliation terms with the authorities for those who want to stay.

The Syrian army and allied forces have recaptured 70 percent of the territory that was under insurgent control in the enclave and after weeks of bombardment residents are fleeing by the thousands.

The relentless Syrian army assault backed by Russian air power that began last month has killed hundreds of people, according to rescuers and a monitor.

The evacuation deals come after years of siege and bombardment that have been a major strategy by the Syrian army to force rebels to surrender and help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recover all of Aleppo, Homs and other areas.

“The deal has been finalised and it could come into effect soon after a ceasefire is announced as early as Wednesday,” said one official familiar with the talks that have been going on for several days.

It would begin with an evacuation of injured civilians, he added.

The predicament of hundreds of rebels trapped in Harasta, one of the main towns in eastern Ghouta, worsened after the army succeeded earlier this month in splintering Ghouta into three besieged zones, cutting off Harasta from other areas.

Last Sunday, the Syrian army had given the rebels of Harasta area an ultimatum to withdraw, state media said.

The Harasta deal will pile pressure on the two main rebel groups - Failaq al-Rahman in the southern pocket and Jaish al-Islam in the northern enclave - to also reach understandings.

They have however publicly said they reject Russia’s offer to leave the enclave.

The most likely option was however the transfer of Failaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam fighters to opposition-held areas in northern and southern Syria respectively, a rebel official familiar with the situation on the ground said.

The defeat in eastern Ghouta would mark the worst setback for the anti-Assad rebellion since the opposition was driven from eastern Aleppo in late 2016 after a similar campaign of siege, bombing, ground assaults and the promise of safe passage out.</s>AMMAN (Reuters) - A Russian-brokered deal has been reached to evacuate a Syrian rebel group from a town in Eastern Ghouta to opposition-held northwestern Syria in the first such deal in the last remaining rebel bastion near the capital, two opposition sources said on Wednesday.

They said fighters from Ahrar al Sham rebel group in control of the besieged town of Harasta had agreed to lay down their arms in return for safe passage to insurgent-controlled areas and an offer to be pardoned under local reconciliation terms with the authorities for those who want to stay.

The Syrian army and allied forces have recaptured 70 percent of the territory that was under insurgent control in the enclave and after weeks of bombardment residents are fleeing by the thousands.

The relentless Syrian army assault backed by Russian air power that began last month has killed hundreds of people, according to rescuers and a monitor.

The evacuation deals come after years of siege and bombardment that have been a major strategy by the Syrian army to force rebels to surrender and help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recover all of Aleppo, Homs and other areas.

“The deal has been finalised and it could come into effect soon after a ceasefire is announced as early as Wednesday,” said one official familiar with the talks that have been going on for several days.

It would begin with an evacuation of injured civilians, he added.

The predicament of hundreds of rebels trapped in Harasta, one of the main towns in eastern Ghouta, worsened after the army succeeded earlier this month in splintering Ghouta into three besieged zones, cutting off Harasta from other areas.

Last Sunday, the Syrian army had given the rebels of Harasta area an ultimatum to withdraw, state media said.

The Harasta deal will pile pressure on the two main rebel groups - Failaq al-Rahman in the southern pocket and Jaish al-Islam in the northern enclave - to also reach understandings.

They have however publicly said they reject Russia’s offer to leave the enclave.

The most likely option was however the transfer of Failaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam fighters to opposition-held areas in northern and southern Syria respectively, a rebel official familiar with the situation on the ground said.

The defeat in eastern Ghouta would mark the worst setback for the anti-Assad rebellion since the opposition was driven from eastern Aleppo in late 2016 after a similar campaign of siege, bombing, ground assaults and the promise of safe passage out.</s>A Syrian rebel group has agreed to evacuate the part of eastern Ghouta under its control, which piles pressure on the remaining opposition forces in their last bastion near the capital to do the same. Lucy Fielder reports.</s>AMMAN - A Russian-brokered deal has been reached to evacuate a Syrian rebel group from a town in Eastern Ghouta to opposition-held northwestern Syria in the first such deal in the last remaining rebel bastion near the capital, two opposition sources said on Wednesday.

They said fighters from Ahrar al Sham rebel group in control of the besieged town of Harasta had agreed to lay down their arms in return for safe passage to insurgent-controlled areas and an offer to be pardoned under local reconciliation terms with the authorities for those who want to stay.The Syrian army and allied forces have recaptured 70 percent of the territory that was under insurgent control in the enclave and after weeks of bombardment residents are fleeing by the thousands.The relentless Syrian army assault backed by Russian air power that began last month has killed hundreds of people, according to rescuers and a monitor.The evacuation deals come after years of siege and bombardment that have been a major strategy by the Syrian army to force rebels to surrender and help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recover all of Aleppo, Homs and other areas. "The deal has been finalized and it could come into effect soon after a ceasefire is announced as early as Wednesday," said one official familiar with the talks that have been going on for several days.It would begin with an evacuation of injured civilians, he added.</s>The Syrian rebel commander Abu Ahmed was smiling. His troops had played a key role in Turkey’s assault on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, a fight they have won.

Abu Ahmed is a senior officer in the 10,000-strong rebel force that, with Turkish backing and instigation, took control of Afrin on Sunday after a two-month battle. His name has been changed, along with others, to freely discuss their sensitive relations with their backers in Ankara.

Amid the series of defeats at the hands of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian backers, victory in Afrin is one of the rare successes for rebel fighters in recent years.

Their quick victory in a fight against an adversary trained and armed by the US, which had ousted Islamic State from vast tracts of territory, underlined the growing power of a rebel army in Syria’s north, armed and paid by Turkey, that now comprises three legions and controls a growing swathe of territory.

Throughout northern Syria, bands of disparate rebel groups have fallen in line behind the Ankara-backed project, which has imposed military discipline on fighters that Washington, while covertly backing, had deemed too fractious and weak to defeat Isis.

“I mean, even Bashar al-Assad didn’t succeed in uniting us,” said one rebel official. “We are militarily and politically weaker than the regime, which is using scorched-earth tactics and areas are falling while we are accusing each other of betrayal.

“The people now hate all the rebel factions, and this will change when there is a unified army,” he added.

Critics, including within the opposition, say they are no more than mercenaries fighting Turkey’s battles, pitting Syrians against Syrians. Their fighters, while acknowledging they have no ultimate say in the broad contours of the war, disagree.

They say their new army, now close to 20,000 strong, will be able to take on al-Qaida-linked militants in the northern province of Idlib. They say the force, as it grows, will strengthen their hand in peace negotiations in Syria, even as Assad’s Russia-backed forces claw back territory around the country. And, if a deal is reached one day to oust Assad, they say they can work with the government’s army to impose order in all of Syria.

“If Assad stays with his apparatchiks this will not be over, but if there is a transition away from Assad and his top echelons in the leadership, we can work together with the army with the support of the international community to impose security on all the liberated areas,” said Abu Ahmed’s political aide. “And if we are tricked, the weapons are still there, and the fighters are there, and it will be a fight to the death.”

Turkey announced the launch of the assault on Afrin in January, after the US said it would raise a border force to patrol Syria’s frontiers from Kurdish militias that had fought with Washington against Isis and liberated the city of Raqqa. Turkey, a Nato member, had long tolerated the American alliance with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers the Syrian branch of its own Kurdish separatist insurgency, because of American assurances that it was temporary.

The battle for Afrin displaced tens of thousands of people and cost nearly 300 civilian lives by the estimates of war monitors, and the rebels’ arrival was accompanied by widespread looting of homes and shops in Afrin city. It also raised accusations that Turkey and its rebel allies intend to change the demography of the area by settling Arab refugees to outnumber indigenous Kurds.

It was Ankara’s second major campaign in Syria. In August 2016 it launched Euphrates Shield, an operation that relied on Syrian rebel groups to clear towns controlled by Isis from the border and halt Kurdish expansion west of the Euphrates river.

After the campaign, Turkey sought to better organise and train the rebels allied with it, providing them with training, arms, and even a monthly stipend for the fighters in the military factions that join the alliance. The three legions that form the rebel army, which nominally falls under the authority of a barebones transitional government formed with Turkish backing, are led by defected Syrian soldiers who are themselves advised by senior Turkish military officers, according to rebel officials and commanders.

Rebels say they conducted the vast majority of the fighting in Afrin, backed by Turkish artillery and fighter planes. They are convinced that the battle was an overall strategic victory, because it will open a ground corridor into nearby Idlib province, a stronghold for al-Qaida-linked militants, and link them up with other rebel factions that want to join the coalition there.

While acknowledging their lack of agency in determining the course of the war, they see no problem in aligning themselves with Ankara, given what they see as a convergence of interests in Syria. The prospect of a united rebel army, as the war in Syria enters its eighth year, appears to overpower their dependency on an ally with whom their goals might not always align.

“The main goal is to build an army for the opposition, and we built a nucleus,” said one rebel commander. “The regime doesn’t make its own decisions, it’s basically a military faction like all the rebels, and neither does the opposition. When the international powers agree, [the war in] Syria will be over, and when that happens, time will help everyone forget.”</s>Thousands of Syrian fighters and their relatives will be evacuated from Harasta, a besieged town in Eastern Ghouta, to an opposition-held province in northern Syria, state media and a rebel group have said.

The Russian-brokered deal was reached on Wednesday after a meeting between a Syrian government delegation and representatives of residents and fighters in rebel-held Harasta.

"Evacuation for families who want to leave will begin tomorrow at 7am (05:00 GMT)," Munther Fares, spokesperson for the Ahrar al-Sham group, which holds Harasta, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Gunmen and civilians who choose to leave will have Russian guarantees."

Addounia TV, a state-run outlet, said that 1,500 gunmen and 6,000 family members would be evacuated on Thursday in two groups to Idlib.

Harasta is home to 20,000 people.

"Families who want to stay [in Harasta] will be given guarantees by the Syrian government and the Russians that no harm will come to them, and that the city will not be subjected to displacement or demographic change," Fares said.

He added that civilians inside and outside Harasta would form a committee to follow up the affairs of those remaining in the city and prisoners.

A member of the Harasta Council confirmed the news to Al Jazeera, saying the evacuation includes gunmen and civilians, including people needing medical assistance.

'Anything can happen'

The evacuation deal marks the first time opposition fighters have been able to leave rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, which has been subjected to an aerial offensive carried out by Syrian government forces and Russian fighter jets for more than a month.

However, Tayyim al-Siyoufi, a Harasta-based activist, told Al Jazeera that although the agreement has been reached, it remains to be seen whether it will be upheld in time for the scheduled evacuation.

"Anything can happen," he said. "We are in a worse position than other towns in Ghouta ... we'll see if the deal goes through or not."

With Harasta occupying just two square kilometres, al-Siyoufi said civilians are feeling the brunt of the air attacks more intensely.

"Every day there are 20 warplanes hovering above us that fire around 200 shellings," he said.

'Overwhelming' situation for displaced Ghouta residents

The Syrian army has now recaptured 80 percent of Eastern Ghouta, which lies on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, and was once its breadbasket.

According to the White Helmets, a voluntary group operating in parts of rebel-controlled Syria, at least 1,252 documented civilians have been killed in the offensive.

More than 4,000 people have been wounded, with 2,990 air raids targeting the region.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled Eastern Ghouta, which used to have a population of around 400,000.

Ingy Sedky, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, said that there are at least four shelters accommodating those who escaped the region: Herjellah, Dweir, Maahad al-Kahraba and Nashabeyah.

"According to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), they are now responding to the needs of more than 25,000 people," Sedky told Al Jazeera. "But it is very hard to know how many people have already left since they keep coming and moving constantly."

SARC has been providing bread packs for 15,000 people, Sedky said.



"We provided canned food parcels that should be enough for 20,000 people for a month, as well as hygiene kits and daily essentials like mattresses, blankets, solar lamps to 15,000 people."

Yet the situation, she continued, is "overwhelming".

"Many of the people came with only the clothes they were wearing," she said. "In each shelter we visit, you could see a huge number of people queuing in front of the SARC mobile clinics, many in very poor health condition due to years spent without proper access to medical care. The journey was especially hard for the elderly and those with limited mobility."

"It is extremely challenging for all humanitarian actors to cover all the needs as thousands of people keep coming every day [at least till yesterday] but we are doing all we can to cope with the current influx."</s>BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on developments in Syria (all times local):

The media arm of Lebanon's Hezbollah group and an opposition activist group say the second-largest rebel group in eastern Ghouta has declared a cease-fire in order to negotiate leaving the area.

The group's Al-Manar TV and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say Failaq al-Rahman will abide by a cease-fire as of midnight Thursday. Hezbollah is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.

There was no immediate comment from Failaq al-Rahman.

The announcement about Failaq al-Rahman's plans came shortly after hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters from a different group began evacuating a key besieged town in eastern Ghouta, near the capital Damascus.

If Failaq al-Rahman decides to evacuate eastern Ghouta, the only group that remains in the area will be the powerful Army of Islam.

Reporters Without Borders says it is very concerned about the reported disappearance of an opposition TV reporter in eastern Ghouta.

The group Thursday called on the international community to do everything possible to protect journalists caught in the fighting.

It said Hadi al-Monajid is eastern Ghouta correspondent of Dubai-based Syrian opposition TV channel Orient News, which has had no news of him since March 17. His colleagues fear he has been arrested.

Syrian troops have recently taken control of 80 percent of eastern Ghouta from rebels.

It quoted Orient News as saying that government forces arrested members of the al-Monajid family days before his disappearance and threatened to kill them in order to force him to surrender.

It added that pro-government newspapers meanwhile say he surrendered of his own free will.

A Syrian monitoring group and the opposition's Civil Defense group are reporting that an airstrike on a market northwest of the country has killed ast least 28 people.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike on a market in the village of Harem killed 28 people, including 11 children and women. It added that the figure could still rise since many of the wounded are in critical condition.

The opposition's Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets said the airstrike killed 37 and caused wide material damage. It said most of the dead were women or children.

Harem is the northwestern province of Idlib that is mostly controlled by rebels and has been subjected to intense airstrikes recently.

U.S. officials and members of the U.S.-led coalition have visited the northern Syrian town of Manbij days after Turkey's president threatened to expand his army's military operations to the area.

Videos by the Kurdish Furat Media Network showed army Maj. Gen. James Jarrard, head of the special operations element of the U.S.-led coalition, and other officials touring the local market in Manbij that is controlled by the U.S-backed Syrian Kurdish forces Thursday.

The Kurdish Network said the visit was to reassure the local population amid Turkish threats.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that after his troops' capture of the northwestern Kurdish town of Afrin, his military aims to head east toward areas controlled by the Kurds.

U.S forces have bases in Manbij and Turkey's threats threaten a confrontation between the two NATO allies.

Hundreds of rebels and their relatives have started leaving a besieged town in eastern Ghouta to the northwestern opposition-held province of Idlib.

State TV showed dozens of buses carrying more than 400 rebels and hundreds of their family members moving from Harasta toward Idlib after sunset Thursday.

The deal to evacuate Harasta could see the bombed-out town handed over to the government following years of siege.

The deal is the first such arrangement for a town inside the besieged enclave, which has endured more than one month of relentless shelling and bombardment as the government, backed by its ally Russia, pushed to retake the region after seven years of revolt.

The monthlong violence in eastern Ghouta left 1,500 dead and about 80 percent of the area captured by the government.

Syrian state media says rebel shelling on Damascus has killed six people and wounded 13 others.

The SANA news agency says 16 shells struck the capital on Thursday.

Rebels are under intense pressure outside the capital, where government forces are advancing against them under the cover of unremitting airstrikes.

Rebels have lost hold of 80 percent of the eastern Ghouta suburbs since government forces launched their offensive more than one month ago. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist-run monitoring group, says more than 1,500 civilians have been killed by government fire.

More than 40 people were killed in Damascus on Tuesday, when rockets fired by rebels landed on a market.

Turkey's prime minister says three Turkish soldiers were killed in an explosion in the northern Syrian town of Afrin during a mission to clear it of explosives believed to have been left behind by retreating Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Binali Yildirim said the soldiers died Thursday from a blast caused by an improvised explosive device. Three other soldiers were wounded, the military said.

Turkish forces and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters captured Afrin on Sunday, eight weeks after they launched an operation to clear the town and surrounding country-side of Syrian Kurdish militia, which Turkey considers to be a security threat.

Thursday's deaths raise the number of Turkish troops killed in Afrin to 49. Turkey says some 270 Syrian opposition fighters have also died.

The Syrian government says the planned evacuation from a besieged town in the suburbs of Damascus has started. The town of Harasta will under the deal be handed over to government forces.

More than 10 government buses drove into Harasta to transport the rebels and civilians out of the town on Thursday.

Syrian state media say the evacuation began with the departure of 238 people, including 36 gunmen and 202 civilians, but no buses were seen crossing out of the town, which is part of the embattled rebel enclave known as eastern Ghouta, on the edge of Damascus.

Syrian rebels have released 13 of their prisoners to the government, ahead of a planned evacuation that will see a besieged town in the suburbs of Damascus handed over to government forces.

The men, who identified themselves to the media as soldiers and civilians attached to the Syrian army, who were captured by rebels in the fighting for Harasta, cried in relief. They thanked God, the Syrian army, and President Bashar Assad for their freedom.

Al-Manar TV, which belongs to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, meanwhile said the government released five "terrorists" to rebels, in exchange. Hezbollah is a key ally of the Syrian government.

Some 7,500 rebels, their family members, and other civilians are expected to leave Harasta on Thursday, following years of siege against the town.

The Russian military says more than 1,000 civilians have left the rebel-held eastern suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, this morning.

Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin told Russian news agencies in Syria that the civilians left through the Wafideen crossing on Thursday morning.

A spokesman for a rebel faction in the region, known as eastern Ghouta, said earlier that the rebels and their families were expected to leave a besieged town in an evacuation deal that will see the town handed over to the government following years of siege and bombardment.

Syrian rebels and their families are expected to leave a besieged town in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, in an evacuation deal that will see the town handed over to the government following years of bombardment.

Monther Fares, a spokesman for the rebel faction Ahrar al-Sham, says his group's fighters are preparing to leave. He says fighters are waiting for buses to arrive to take them and their families to other rebel-held areas in north Syria.

The government-controlled Military Media Center says 1,500 rebels and 6,000 civilians will leave Harasta on Thursday.

The deal is modeled after others that have had rebels surrender swaths of territory around the capital and other major cities to the government. The U.N. and human rights groups have condemned such arrangements as "forced displacement."

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>BEIRUT -- Hundreds of armed rebels and civilians will begin evacuating a besieged town in eastern Ghouta, a rebel spokesman and Syrian government media reported Wednesday, in the first instance of fighters leaving the opposition stronghold east of the capital after a deal reached with the government.

Monther Fares, a spokesman for the powerful Ahrar al-Sham group, said the deal involves the departure starting this morning of opposition fighters from his group to northern Syria. He said the deal negotiated with the government gives security guarantees for those who decide to stay in the town after the government takes over.

The Syria-controlled Military Media Center said 1,500 armed rebels and 6,000 civilians will evacuate Harasta today to the northern province of Idlib as part of a negotiated deal. The Ahrar al-Sham group, headquartered in Harasta, is the smallest of the rebel groups that control eastern Ghouta.

It is the first such deal involving the evacuation of opposition fighters from eastern Ghouta, which has endured a government air and ground assault for a month.

Fares said rebels have agreed to leave because of "civilian pressure" resulting from intensive airstrikes and "warplanes that do not leave the sky," adding that residents of Harasta have spent the past three months inside shelters. He said Russia, a military backer of President Bashar Assad, was the guarantor of the deal.

In other parts of Syria, government forces have also pressed the rebels to enter into local cease-fire agreements under which the militants and their families would relocate to other parts of the country. The Syrian opposition has criticized such agreements, saying they reward the government's siege tactics and legitimize the forced displacement of civilians from their homes.

Syrian government forces have chipped away at the sprawling rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta, seizing more than 70 percent of the territory since Feb. 18. The attack has displaced 45,000 people, according to the United Nations. Before the latest offensive, it was estimated that 400,000 people were trapped in the besieged region.

Eastern Ghouta was one of the hubs of the civil uprising against Assad's government in 2011, which was to be eclipsed by a violent crackdown by the security services and subsequent armed revolt.

Rebels have hit back with rockets and mortar shells on the capital Damascus.

In one of the deadliest attacks in the Syrian capital in the country's 7-year civil war, at least 44 people, most of them women and children, were killed when insurgents fired mortar shells at a busy market in Damascus on Tuesday evening, state media said Wednesday.

In another bloody scene, an airstrike killed 21 people -- 16 of them children -- in the rebel-held province of Idlib in northwestern Syria, an activist said Wednesday. The children, between 7 and 10 years old, were leaving their schools in Kfar Bateekh village when jets began flying overhead.

Raghda Ghanoum, an activist near Kfar Bateekh, said the children and four adults took cover in a cave nearby, where the airstrikes hit. Ghanoum said she documented 21 victim names, including 16 children.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 were killed in the airstrikes on the village.

The Observatory put the death toll in the market shelling in Damascus at 43, including 11 pro-government fighters. Video of the aftermath posted online showed scenes of chaos, with people screaming, and bodies and store mannequins strewn across the ground.

Hospital Director Mohammed Haitham al-Husseini told Al-Ikhbariya TV that 35 others were wounded in the mortar attack, with six in intensive care. He said most of the casualties were women and children.

Witnesses told state-run TV that the mortar shells fell during rush hour in the popular market on the eve of Mother's Day, celebrated in the Middle East with the start of spring.

A woman speaking in the hospital said her niece, who was wounded by shrapnel, lost her 4-yea-old son. "We just saw him in the morgue," the woman told Al-Ikhbariya. The TV network did not identify the woman or the child.

The government blamed the attack on rebels in eastern Ghouta.

Government forces, meanwhile, continued to pound remaining opposition-held areas with shelling and airstrikes.

The Syrian Civil Defense first responders, also known as the White Helmets, said that since the latest offensive began a month ago, it documented 1,252 civilians killed in more than 2,990 airstrikes and hundreds of other shellings.
The Syrian government and rebel forces reach an agreement to allow 7,500 people to evacuate from rebel-held Harasta, Eastern Ghouta.