MOSCOW - Russian Defence Ministry said more than 5,000 civilians left Syria's Eastern Ghouta on Thursday, RIA agency reported.</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government appeared close to ending rebel resistance in eastern Ghouta as civilians streamed from one of its besieged, bomb-battered towns and insurgents prepared to surrender another on Thursday.

The army assault on eastern Ghouta, an area of towns and farmland just outside Damascus, has been one of the most intense in Syria’s seven-year-old war, killing more than 1,500 people in a relentless bombardment with war planes, shells and rockets.

Syrian state television showed lines of buses preparing to enter the town of Harasta to transport fighters and their families to opposition areas in northwestern Syria in a deal brokered by the government’s ally Russia.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said more than 4,000 people had fled the larger rebel-held town of Douma since Wednesday.

By surrendering Harasta, the Ahrar al-Sham group will leave only Douma and another rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta that includes the towns of Jobar, Ein Terma, Arbin and Zamalka.

They are all that remain of the main insurgent stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus, the biggest prize for President Bashar al-Assad in his fight against the rebels since the recapture of Aleppo in late 2016.

On Sunday, Assad drove himself to a newly captured battlefront in eastern Ghouta, a demonstration of his growing confidence as the war against the rebels turns more decisively in his favor.

The Russian Defence Ministry website showed what it said was live footage from the al-Wafideen crossing point from Douma into government areas. Over a period of several minutes, it showed dozens of people in small groups coming around a corner and trekking along the dirt road past armed soldiers.

Some bore bundles of their possessions, others carried small children or pushed prams. Behind were fields and trees. At one point in the road a man could be seen in a red shirt with the logo of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

Douma is the most populous area in eastern Ghouta, and for more than a week it has been entirely surrounded by the government. The Jaish al-Islam rebel group that holds the town has said it is determined to fight on after a month-long government offensive that has taken 70 percent of the former opposition enclave in eastern Ghouta.

However, the Observatory said people leaving the area were doing so under an agreement between the group and the government’s closest ally Russia.

The Syrian government and Russia have both accused rebels in eastern Ghouta of stopping civilians leaving the area. They say their assault, which the Observatory says has killed more than 1,500 people so far, is needed to end Islamist militant rule over the area’s people.

They also say it is needed to end rebel shelling of Damascus and other nearby areas. On Tuesday, a rocket struck a marketplace in a government-held town, killing dozens.

However, the ferocity of the Syrian army’s offensive in eastern Ghouta has prompted Western condemnation and urgent pleas from United Nations humanitarian agencies for a ceasefire.

Over the past week, tens of thousands of people have fled across the frontlines into government territory to escape the near relentless bombing.

For the Harasta rebels, the journey to Idlib is one already well trodden by insurgents from other areas surrendered to Assad after prolonged sieges and intense bombardments of the kind used against eastern Ghouta over the past month.

The northwestern province is the biggest remaining area under rebel control in Syria and its population has been doubled by refugees fleeing other areas including many opposition supporters.

A military media unit run by Assad’s ally Hezbollah on Wednesday said some 1,500 fighters along with 6,000 family members would depart Harasta under the agreement with the government.

On Thursday the same Hezbollah media unit said the army and Ahrar al-Sham had started to exchange prisoners as the Harasta deal got under way.</s>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.

Fighters from the 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 sources said.

There was however no indication when the deal would be implemented and one source familiar with the talks said obstacles may delay it for a few days.

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 as relentless airstrikes pounded residential areas where thousands had sheltered in basements across the densely populated enclave, 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, saying the remaining civilians in the town were “facing untold suffering.”

A local official in the opposition-run Harasta council was quoted by opposition news outlets that a deal had been reached but did not say when it was expected to be implemented.

Last year, rebels launched a major offensive on army barracks on the edge of Harasta that led to retaliatory attacks. The battles were among the fiercest in Eastern Ghouta in recent years.

Assad has vowed to end what he portrays as a terrorist threat in close proximity to his seat of power.

On Tuesday, a rocket fell on a popular residential area across the rebel-held enclave killing at least 40 people, according to medics in government controlled areas.

The Syrian authorities accused rebels of firing the rockets in revenge attacks which rebels deny.

Over 100 civilians were killed in the last two days of air strikes in Eastern Ghouta with most of the raids on Douma city, the largest population centre with more than 150,000 people still living there.

Rebels and residents say napalm and incendiary weapons were dropped on several civilian areas to force rebels to surrender.

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..

Residents and rescuers say the Russian airforce stepped up its bombing of Harasta town as talks were going on to broker the deal.

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

Rebels released 13 prisoners of war ahead of the evacuation.

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

The agreement could serve as a blueprint for other towns in the enclave.

State-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV cast the deal as a victory for the country. Its correspondent Rabieh Dibeh said 10 buses had crossed into the town of Harasta to transport the "terrorists" — as the government refers to all armed opposition fighters — to a rebel-held province in north Syria. The camera showed dozens more buses waiting to enter Harasta.

Critics say it is a formula for displacement that lets the state choose its citizenry — and expel those opposed to or fearful of President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule.

Some 6,000 civilians are expected to depart with the militants, some of them family members of the rebels and others activists, and other people afraid of the government's vindictive security services. An unknown number of others have already been forced out of their homes or killed in the government's ferocious campaigns against Harasta and eastern Ghouta leading up to the deal.

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross are not facilitating the evacuations; they are being done in conjunction with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

The deal is modeled after others that have had rebels surrender swaths of territory around the capital and other major cities to the government. In all cases, the arrangements followed indiscriminate campaigns by the government against hospitals, markets, and other civilian targets, driving thousands of civilians out of their homes.

Harasta appeared in ruins in a broadcast from al-Ikhbariya, and apartment blocks in the town looked gutted. Monther Fares, a spokesman for the rebel faction Ahrar al-Sham, confirmed that his group's fighters were preparing to depart.

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

The 13 men released by the Syrian rebels ahead of the evacuation identified themselves to the media as soldiers and civilians attached to the Syrian army, who were captured by rebels in the fighting for Harasta. In the TV footage, many cried in relief, thanking God, the Syrian army, and President Assad for their freedom.

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

Fares said the rebels 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 last three months inside shelters.

Russia, a military backer of Assad, was the guarantor of the deal, he said.

Also Thursday, civilians streamed out of another part of the eastern Ghouta, continuing a trend that has seen close to 50,000 people flee across lines to the government for safety.

The Russian military said more than 1,000 civilians left rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday morning. Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin told Russian news agencies in Syria the civilians left through the Wafideen crossing.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said some 4,000 people departed the besieged town of Douma in the last 24 hours.

An Associated Press journalist in Damascus, Syria and AP writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.</s>The Latest on developments in Syria (all times local):

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."</s>Hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters and their relatives began evacuating a key besieged town in eastern Ghouta on Thursday, marking the first such opposition surrender from the bombed-out region east of Damascus.

The departure of opposition fighters from the powerful Ahrar al-Sham group could serve as a blueprint for other rebels in other towns, bringing the Assad regime closer to recapturing the entire territory following years of siege and relentless bombardment.

Syrian TV broadcast footage showing dozens of white buses that had been parked along a main highway for hours, with opposition fighters and civilians on board, start to drive out in a long convoy. It said among the 1,580 evacuees were 413 gunmen. More are expected to leave in coming days.

As the opposition prepared to depart the town of Harasta, thousands of civilians streamed out of other areas in eastern Ghouta that were still being bombed by the regime. They included dozens of civilians who appeared to be wounded, some hobbling on crutches, another with an eye injury.

The regime's assault has sparked a tide of displacement in the Damascus suburbs as civilians try to escape the violence. Some have moved deeper into the opposition-held enclave, while some 50,000 others have crossed the front-lines, to regime authorities.

The regime's air and ground assault, which escalated Feb. 18, has seen the once sprawling territory at the doors of the capital shrink to three disconnected opposition-held islands. The evacuation by Ahrar al-Sham from Harasta, if it goes through Thursday, could serve as a blueprint for other rebels in other towns, bringing the regime closer to recapturing the entire territory.

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders said the advancing regime forces had captured or destroyed 19 of the 20 hospitals the group was supporting just one week ago. It said the medical staff was fleeing the approaching front lines.

The opposition holds just 20 percent of the eastern Ghouta territory they held one month ago, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. But that territory includes several densely populated residential zones including Douma, the largest town in eastern Ghouta.

The Observatory said some 4,000 people evacuated Douma since Wednesday. The Russian military said more than 5,000 people left eastern Ghouta.

Opposition and the regime exchanged 18 prisoners ahead of the Harasta evacuation, according to pro-regime media.

The 13 men released by the Syrian opposition identified themselves to the media outside Harasta as soldiers and civilians attached to the Syrian army, who were captured by the opposition in the fighting for Harasta. Crying in relief, they thanked God, the Syrian army and Assad for their freedom.

The deal for Harasta will see 1,500 opposition fighters and 6,000 civilians leave to an opposition-held province in northwest Syria, according to the state-affiliated Military Media Center.

Monther Fares, a spokesman for the opposition faction Ahrar al-Sham, confirmed that his group's fighters were preparing to depart. Fares said the opposition 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 last three months inside shelters.

But the arrangement leaves other fighters for the Failaq al-Rahman group still inside. The regime is threatening to move on them if they do not also agree to depart.

State-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV cast the deal as a victory for the country. Its correspondent Rabieh Dibeh said the regime would restore its authority over Harasta once the "terrorists" left the town. He said defectors from the army would be ordered to rejoin the service.

Critics say it is a formula for displacement that legitimizes the regime's brutal siege tactics that have deprived hundreds of thousands of civilians of food and medicines and subjected them to a half-decade of violence. Numerous, top U.N. officials have likened the tactics to war crimes and crimes against humanity.</s>The Syrian government moved closer to ending rebel resistance in eastern Ghouta as civilians streamed out of one of its besieged, bomb-battered towns on Thursday and insurgents prepared to surrender another.

The army assault on eastern Ghouta, an area of towns and farmland just outside Damascus, has been one of the most intense in Syria’s seven-year-old war, killing more than 1,500 people in a relentless bombardment with war planes, shells and rockets.

A witness said 15 buses had driven into the town of Harasta to transport fighters and their families to opposition areas in northwestern Syria in a deal brokered by the government’s ally Russia.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said more than 4,000 people had fled the larger rebel-held town of Douma since Wednesday, crossing over into government-held territory.

The Ahrar al-Sham group’s decision to surrender Harsata leaves only Douma and another rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta that includes the towns of Jobar, Ein Terma, Arbin and Zamalka. They are all that remain of the main insurgent stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus, the biggest prize for President Bashar al-Assad in his fight against the rebels since the recapture of Aleppo in late 2016.

Air strikes pummelled parts of eastern Ghouta on Thursday morning, striking Arbin and Zamalka and killing 19 people, according to the observatory. An army officer interviewed on state television urged rebels who had not yet negotiated a deal to quit. “Death is coming for you if you do not surrender,” he said.

On Sunday, Mr Assad drove himself to a newly captured battlefront in eastern Ghouta, a demonstration of his seemingly unassailable position in the war that has been going his way since Russia sent its air force to help him in 2015.

The deal to surrender Harasta is the first by eastern Ghouta rebels and began on Thursday with a prisoner swap. In an interview with state television, a Syrian soldier freed by rebels wept and thanked God and the army for his release.

The Reuters witness at the crossing with Harasta said the army had removed barriers from the old frontline lying across the road into the town to allow the buses to pass.

The Russian defence ministry website showed what it said was live footage from the al-Wafideen crossing point from Douma into government areas. Over a period of several minutes, it showed dozens of people in small groups coming around a corner and trekking along the dirt road past armed soldiers.

Some bore bundles of their possessions, others carried small children or pushed prams. Behind were fields and trees. At one point in the road a man could be seen in a red shirt with the logo of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

Douma is the most populous area in eastern Ghouta, and for more than a week it has been entirely surrounded by the government. The Jaish al-Islam rebel group that holds the town has said it is determined to fight on after a month-long government offensive that has taken 70 per cent of the former opposition enclave in eastern Ghouta.

However, the observatory said people leaving the area were doing so under an agreement between the group and Russia.

The Syrian government and Russia have both accused rebels in eastern Ghouta of stopping civilians leaving the area. They say their assault, which the observatory says has killed more than 1,500 people so far, is needed to end Islamist militant rule over the area’s people.

They also say it is needed to end rebel shelling of Damascus and other nearby areas. On Tuesday, a rocket struck a marketplace in a government-held town, killing dozens.

However, the ferocity of the Syrian army’s offensive in eastern Ghouta has prompted western condemnation and urgent pleas from United Nations humanitarian agencies for a ceasefire. Over the past week, tens of thousands of people have fled across the frontlines into government territory.

For the Harasta rebels, the journey to Idlib is one already well trodden by insurgents from other areas surrendered to Mr Assad after prolonged sieges and intense bombardments of the kind used against eastern Ghouta over the past month. – Reuters</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 local 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.

"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 will also form a committee to follow up the affairs of those who remained in the city and of the 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.

The evacuation deal marks the first for opposition fighters 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 a space of just two square kilometres, al-Siyoufi said civilians are feeling the brunt of the air attacks more intensively.

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

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 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 Institute 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 everyday [at least till yesterday] but we are doing all we can to cope with the current influx."</s>Syrian rebels and their families are to be evacuated from a key town in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region as part of an agreement with the government.

State media said 1,760 people had left Harasta, but a BBC Arabic correspondent said he had seen no buses depart yet.

Military sources said a total of 700 rebels and 1,300 civilians would be driven to Idlib province on Thursday.

The evacuation deal is the first agreed since the offensive on the Eastern Ghouta was stepped up a month ago.

A monitoring group says the air and ground assault has killed 1,500 civilians, injured 5,300 others, and forced 82,000 to flee in recent days.

Government soldiers and allied militiamen have driven rebel forces out of about 70% of the region, cutting it into three pockets – one of them around Harasta.
• ‘We will stay until the end’: A doctor’s battle in Eastern Ghouta
• Why is there a war in Syria?

How many people are leaving Harasta?

The opposition council said 20,000 civilians were trapped there last week.

It said air and artillery strikes by the government and its allies during their five-year siege of the Eastern Ghouta had deliberately targeted civilians in the town and destroyed its infrastructure, denying them access to food and medical treatment.

Despite the onslaught, a Syrian military source told Reuters news agency that more than 18,000 people were expected to stay in Harasta under government rule

Another 2,000 people, including 600 to 700 rebels from the Ahrar al-Sham group, would leave for Idlib on 40 buses on Thursday, the source added.

On Wednesday, state media reported that a total of 1,500 rebels and 6,000 civilians were expected to be evacuated under the deal with the government.

What has happened so far?

The implementation of the deal began on Thursday morning with a prisoner swap.

State TV reported that 18 people were freed, 13 of them held by the rebels. It interviewed a soldier among them, who thanked God and the army for his release.

Later, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent confirmed that its personnel had entered Harasta and it posted photos of them helping civilians on to buses.

By 17:00 (15:00 GMT) on Thursday, a total of 1,760 people, including 308 rebels and 577 children, had left Harasta in buses, the official Sana news agency reported, without specifying their destination.

But a BBC Arabic correspondent waiting outside Harasta said no buses had left.

AFP news agency cited a military source as saying the buses were in a buffer zone, waiting to cross into government-controlled territory.

Will other towns be evacuated?

Ahrar al-Sham fighters in Harasta agreed to lay down their weapons in return for safe passage to Idlib, home to more than 2.6 million people.

Spokesman Monther Fares told the Associated Press that they had faced “civilian pressure” as a result of the intense air strikes, which had forced people to live underground for three months.

The BBC’s Martin Patience in Beirut says the deal may put pressure on the rebel groups that control other parts of the Eastern Ghouta to follow suit.

Similar deals have been on the table with Jaysh al-Islam – which controls the northern pocket around Douma – and Faylaq al-Rahman – which controls the southern pocket around Arbin and Zamalka – but have yet to get anywhere.

Both factions have vowed to keep fighting, even as they have been driven further and further back.

Government air strikes on the southern pocket killed at least 19 people on Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based monitoring group also said more than 4,000 civilians had fled Douma on foot and crossed into government territory through the al-Wafideen checkpoint over the past 24 hours. The civilians were leaving under an agreement between Jaysh al-Islam and Russia, it added.

Rockets and mortars are also still being fired by rebels into government-held districts of Damascus. A police source told Sana that two civilians were killed and four others injured by a shell that hit the Barzeh area on Thursday. BBC</s>Thousands of fighters to be deported after deal with Russian and Syrian officials

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Around 200 opposition fighters and family members have left the besieged enclave of Ghouta after agreeing with Russian and Syrian officials to be exiled to Idlib, in northern Syria.

Up to 7,500 fighters and their families will be deported as part of the deal, which followed assurances from Russian military officers that other civilians in the Harasta neighbourhood could remain in their homes.



Syrian rebel victory in Afrin reveals strength of Turkish-backed force Read more

The forced transfer follows the relentless month-long bombardment of Ghouta, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Thousands of refugees have fled the enclave over the past week.

Those being exiled on Thursday were rebels from the Ahrar al-Sham faction, which was dominant in Harasta over the last few years of the siege. Ghouta has been an opposition stronghold throughout much of the war, but large parts of it have now been recaptured by the regime.

At least 1,500 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the airstrikes, which aid agencies described as a systematic annihilation.



The transfer is the latest of many similar deals made elsewhere in Syria. All have followed intensive blockades and military attacks, and have led to those leaving being bussed to Idlib.



All of Idlib province remains out of central government control. Along with an estimated 1.6 million local residents, at least another 1 million displaced people from elsewhere in Syria have ended up in the province. It is the one part of the country that largely confirms the regime narrative that the forces confronting it are dominated by jihadists.

Timeline The Syrian war Show Hide Unprecedented protests demand civil liberties and the release of political prisoners after four decades of repressive rule by the Assad family. The regime represses demonstrations in Damascus and the southern city of Deraa but protests continue. Defecting army colonel Riad al-Asaad sets up the Turkey-based rebel Free Syrian Army. Islamist groups join the revolt. Regime forces take control of the rebel stronghold in Homs after a month of bombardment. Other bloody operations are carried out, notably in the central city of Hama, after massive anti-regime protests. More than 1,400 people die in a chemical weapon attack on rebel-held districts near Damascus. The US and Assad ally Russia agree a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, averting punitive US strikes against the regime. Hostilities between jihadists and rebel groups turn into an open war in the north. The group that will become known as Islamic State takes Raqqa – the first provincial capital to fall out of regime control – from rebel forces. A US-led coalition launches airstrikes against Isis in Syria. The strikes benefit Kurdish groups, which since 2013 have run autonomous administrations in Kurdish-majority areas. Russia launches airstrikes in support of Assad's troops, who are on the back foot. Russian firepower helps turn the tables for the regime, which begins to retake rebel-held territory. The regime retakes Syria's second city, Aleppo. Russia and Iran, as backers of the Syrian regime, and Turkey, a supporter of the rebels, organise talks in Kazakhstan, between representatives of both sides. The process leads to the creation of four "de-escalation zones". A sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun kills more than 80 people, prompting Washington to attack a regime airbase. Further complicating an already drawn-out conflict, Turkey launches an operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units which, with US support, played a key role in beating back Isis. Regime launches a ferocious assault on the remaining rebel-held enclave near Damascus, eastern Ghouta. In under four weeks, the Russian-backed onslaught kills more than 1,200 civilians.

US president Donald Trump surprises advisors and allies alike by declaring victory over the Islamic State and promising to withdraw US troops from the conflict. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announce that they have driven Isis out of their final stronghold of Baghuz. At least 11,000 SDF fighters, a Kurdish-led militia which includes Arab, Syriac and Turkmen units, have died in the four-year military campaign against the group in Syria. Britain and France agree to deploy additional special forces in Syria to allow the US to withdraw its ground troops from the fight against remaining Isis forces in the country. Rebels withdraw from Khan Sheikhun in north-west Syria, clearing the way for pro-government forces to enter the town – a key moment in the war for Idlib province, the country’s last major rebel stronghold.

Extremist groups have held aegis in large parts of Idlib since 2013. And although Islamist and moderate groups have recently taken on the jihadists, ousting them from a swathe of territory, they retain influence over the way much of the region is governed.

Mixing jihadists with rebel groups and civilians from elsewhere in Syria is seen by many opposition leaders – and deportees themselves – as a ploy to reaffirm the regime claims that the insurrection it faced was a foreign-backed plot using jihadist proxies.



The danger, according to officials in neighbouring states, is that a war-weary international community will not be willing to draw a distinction, if and when the Syrian regime and its allies turn their guns on Idlib.



Senior Arab officials in Amman, Jordan, and Beirut, Lebanon, have described conditions in Idlib as a “well-constructed killbox”, where civilians will enjoy few protections in what could be the last and most decisive phase of the war, which entered an eighth year nearly two weeks ago.

What to do with the estimated 250,000 people who remain in Ghouta is yet to be determined. UN officials envisage that armed opposition groups and their families from two other areas inside the enclave will also be forced to leave in the coming weeks.

At least 50,000 civilians have left Ghouta for elsewhere in Damascus since the siege started to wind down a week ago. The bombings have not stopped, however, with dozens of people since killed. Much-needed aid has been allowed into Ghouta in the past week.


Evacuations of 7,500 people from rebel-held Harasta, Eastern Ghouta begin. Rebels agree with the Syrian government and Russia for the displaced people to be exiled in Idlib Governorate.