BEIRUT: Iyad Abdelaziz, a council member of the opposition-controlled town of Douma in the Eastern Ghotua suburbs of Damascus, said reports of an agreement to surrender the town to the central government are not true.
Abdelaziz said there was no agreement reached to have the Army of Islam rebel faction leave Douma for northern Syria and hand over the town to government forces.
He said, however, that “humanitarian cases” will be allowed to evacuate on Monday.
Douma has been besieged by regime forces since 2013. It was one of the earliest hubs of the Arab Spring-styled uprising against President Bashar Assad that swept through the country in 2011.
Hundreds of residents are believed to require care for war wounds and medical conditions exacerbated by the siege. The regime routinely blocks aid groups from evacuating patients from besieged areas for medical care.
An opposition official said the Army of Islam was still engaged in talks with Russia over the future of Douma. Russia is a key backer of the Syrian government.
Ahmad Ramadan said Turkey, which backs various Syrian opposition groups, and shares control over a part of opposition territory in north Syria, is also party to the talks.
The Syrian regime’s media earlier said fighters belonging to the Army of Islam group had agreed to evacuate their stronghold in the suburbs of Damascus, giving the regime complete control of the Eastern Ghouta region which has been rebel-held since 2011.
The Central Military Media outlet, which is linked to the Syrian military, said the Army of Islam had agreed to leave the town of besieged town of Douma for Jarablus, a town shared between rebel and Turkish control in north Syria.
It said a local council for Douma will be formed with the approval of the Damascus regime.
Douma was one of the earliest hubs of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in 2011. The security services responded by putting the town and other suburbs around Damascus under siege, bombing hospitals and residential areas, and blocking food and medical relief.
Douma is one of the last pockets of the opposition around the capital to hold out against the regime. The city’s fall would seal the rebels’ worst defeat since 2016.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported earlier in the day Russia’s military police would be deployed inside Douma to take custodianship of the town.
Opposition sources say Jaish Al-Islam officials have been desperately trying to strike a deal that would bring Russian military police into Douma, and let the group keep a role in maintaining internal security but under the state’s overall jurisdiction.
Russian military officers negotiating with Jaish Al-Islam told the group it accepted such an arrangement but the Syrian regime remained against it, a senior opposition source familiar with the talks said.
Russia was behind the main battle plan, directing elite forces and militias on the ground and calling in airstrikes from Syrian and Russian warplanes, two Western intelligence sources based in the region told Reuters this week.
The Syrian army last week warned the insurgents to surrender or face a military assault to drive them out.
The Syrian army command said on Saturday it had regained most of the towns and villages in Eastern Ghouta and was pressing its military operations in Douma.
The city’s fall would seal the rebels’ worst defeat since 2016.
The once bustling commercial hub on the outskirts of the capital was the main center of street protests in the Damascus suburbs against Assad’s rule that ignited the conflict more than seven years ago.
Defense analysts say a major goal of the regime’s campaign was to complete a security belt around the capital, where for years fighters dug into a network of tunnels and well-fortified positions resisted countless offensives to seize the enclave.
Many of the predominantly Sunni Muslim inhabitants of eastern Ghouta say they fear their displacement was part of a deliberate attempt to bring demographic changes in strategic areas that dilutes their presence in favor of Assad’s Alawite sect and other minorities.
Syrian rebels deny deal over Ghouta town
Syrian rebels deny deal over Ghouta town
Syria authorities say torched 1 million captagon pills
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, two security officials told AFP, including one million pills of captagon, whose industrial-scale production flourished under ousted president Bashar Assad.
Captagon is a banned amphetamine-like stimulant that became Syria’s largest export during the country’s more than 13-year civil war, effectively turning it into a narco state under Assad.
“We found a large quantity of captagon, around one million pills,” said a balaclava-wearing member of the security forces, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Osama, and whose khaki uniform bore a “public security” patch.
An AFP journalist saw forces pour fuel over and set fire to a cache of cannabis, the painkiller tramadol, and around 50 bags of pink and yellow captagon pills in a security compound formerly belonging to Assad’s forces in the capital’s Kafr Sousa district.
Captagon has flooded the black market across the region in recent years, with oil-rich Saudi Arabia a major destination.
“The security forces of the new government discovered a drug warehouse as they were inspecting the security quarter,” said another member of the security forces, who identified himself as Hamza.
Authorities destroyed the stocks of alcohol, cannabis, captagon and hashish in order to “protect Syrian society” and “cut off smuggling routes used by Assad family businesses,” he added.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers have yet to spell out their policy on alcohol, which has long been widely available in the country.
Since an Islamist-led rebel alliance toppled Assad on December 8 after a lightning offensive, Syria’s new authorities have said massive quantities of captagon have been found in former government sites around the country, including security branches.
AFP journalists in Syria have seen fighters from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) set fire to what they said were stashes of captagon found at facilities once operated by Assad’s forces.
Security force member Hamza confirmed Wednesday that “this is not the first initiative of its kind — the security services, in a number of locations, have found other warehouses... and drug manufacturing sites and destroyed them in the appropriate manner.”
Maher Assad, a military commander and the brother of Bashar Assad, is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.
Experts believe Syria’s former leader used the threat of drug-fueled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.
A Saudi delegation met Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, a source close to the government told AFP, to discuss the “Syria situation and captagon.”
Jordan in recent years has also cracked down on the smuggling of weapons and drugs including captagon along its 375-kilometer (230-mile) border with Syria.
Jordan says 18,000 Syrians returned home since Assad’s fall
AMMAN: About 18,000 Syrians have crossed into their country from Jordan since the government of Bashar Assad was toppled earlier this month, Jordanian authorities said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Mazen Al-Faraya told state TV channel Al-Mamlaka that “around 18,000 Syrians have returned to their country between the fall of the regime of Bashar Assad on December 8, 2024 until Thursday.”
He said the returnees included 2,300 refugees registered with the United Nations.
Amman says it has hosted about 1.3 million Syrians who fled their country since civil war broke out in 2011, with 650,000 formally registered with the United Nations.
Lebanon hopes for neighborly relations in first message to new Syria government
- Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war
- Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders
DUBAI: Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel – a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist militants captured the capital Damascus.
Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.
Iraqi intelligence chief discusses border security with new Syrian administration
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi delegation met with Syria’s new rulers in Damascus on Thursday, an Iraqi government spokesman said, the latest diplomatic outreach more than two weeks after the fall of Bashar Assad’s rule.
The delegation, led by Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid Al-Shatri, “met with the new Syrian administration,” government spokesman Bassem Al-Awadi told state media, adding that the parties discussed “the developments in the Syrian arena, and security and stability needs on the two countries’ shared border.”
