In Syria, more airstrikes hit IS de facto capital of Raqqa
Final evacuation from Damascus district: governor
BEIRUT, May 29, (Agencies): More airstrikes and artillery shelling on Monday hit the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group, as US-backed fighters pushed closer to the extremists’ stronghold, activists said.
The developments come ahead of what is expected to be a major battle for Raqqa in the coming weeks.
Airstrikes have intensified over the past days as US-backed fighters have pushed on toward the city, getting closer to it from all sides. The Kurdishled Syria Democratic Forces captured dozens of towns and villages under the cover of airstrikes by the US-led coalition since November, when the group began an operation entitled Euphrates Wrath, aiming to eventually surround and capture Raqqa.
SDF fighters have surrounded Raqqa from the north, west and east. The extremists still have an exit from the south, even though the US-led coalition destroyed two bridges on the Euphrates River south of Raqqa.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the city was pounded by warplanes and artillery since early morning. The activist group had no immediate word on casualties from the new airstrikes, adding that about 38 people have been killed in Raqqa and its suburbs over the past three days.
The activist-operated Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said that since Sunday, the US-led coalition carried out more than 30 airstrikes on the city, killing 35 people and destroying a school on Raqqa’s northern outskirts.
On Sunday, opposition activists said the US-led coalition dropped leaflets in Arabic on Raqqa, urging residents to leave the city. Some leaflets gave instructions of how to leave Raqqa, calling on people to keep their plans secret from IS and to leave without any weapons and waiving a white banner.
“This is your last chance. Failing to leave could lead to death. Raqqa will fall. Don’t be there when it happens,” read one of the leaflets.
IS has been preventing people from leaving Raqqa and many fear that residents will be used as human shields when SDF, the most effective force fighting the extremists in Syria, begin marching in the city that has been held by IS since January 2014.
In the capital, Damascus, the governor said the evacuation of the last group of opposition fighters and their families from the northeastern neighborhood of Barzeh was completed, after a batch of over 1,000 persons left. The Observatory said the ones leaving Monday have rejected an amnesty from the government.
The evacuation of Barzeh leaves only one neighborhood on the edge of Damascus, Jobar, in the hands of opposition fighters. A series of evacuation deals in the area in recent months leaves the government of President Bashar Assad firmly in control of the capital, once encircled by rebels.
The government-controlled Syrian Military Media quoted governor Beshr al-Sabban as saying that 1,012 people, including 455 gunmen, were the last to leave Barzeh.
Anas a-Dimashqi, an opposition activist based near Damascus, said the fighters and their families will head to the town of Jarablus on the border with Turkey and the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib. He said those who stay have up to six months to settle their conditions with the government.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 people quit a rebel-held district of Damascus Monday, its governor said, in the final phase of a deal bringing Syria’s government closer to controlling the entire capital.
The evacuations from the northern neighbourhood of Barzeh are part of a so-called “reconciliation” agreement for three opposition-held districts of Damascus.
Under such deals, fighters and civilians are granted safe passage to other rebel-held territory in exchange for an end to bombardment and siege.
The agreement has allowed Syria’s government to declare control over the Damascus districts of Qabun and Tishrin, and on Monday the last evacuees left Barzeh.
“The last phase of the reconciliation deal for Barzeh is complete, with the departure of 1,012 people including 455 armed men,” Damascus governor Beshr Assaban told state news agency SANA.
“This will allow state institutions to return to the neighbourhood,” Assaban said.
The agreement was struck earlier this month and had already seen more than 5,000 people — nearly half of them rebels — leave Barzeh in several waves.
Like the thousands who left Qabun and Tishrin, they will head to opposition-controlled territory in northern Syria.
There are now only a handful of areas in Damascus that remain outside government control.
Rebels hold part of the heavily damaged Jobar district in the east, and in the south, the Tadamun and Hajar alAswad neighbourhoods as well as the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk are now mostly controlled by jihadists.