A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on May 14, 2018 shows government forces head towards jihadist positions in the Hajar al-Aswad district on the southern outskirts of Damascus.
Since mid-April, forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have pounded Islamic State (IS) in its last Damascus bastion. Retaking the area, which includes Hajar al-Aswad and the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk, would place the regime in full control of the capital and its surroundings for the first time since 2012.
/ AFP PHOTO / SANA /
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A first batch of Islamic State group fighters left their final stronghold in the south of Syria’s Damascus early Sunday under a deal struck after weeks of fierce combat, a monitor said.
Six buses carried fighters and their families out of the IS-controlled Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp and neighbouring Tadamun district, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The six buses left at dawn, heading east for the Syrian desert,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.
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