Evacuation of Damascus militants delayed after rebel leader killed
A U.N.-brokered deal to evacuate more than 2,000 Islamic State fighters and other militants from rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on December 26 has been delayed after the killing of an insurgent leader, an organization that monitors the Syrian war said.
The United Nations said it aimed to convene peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 25 to try to end nearly five years of civil war and it appealed to the warring parties not to allow events on the ground to derail the process.
The evacuation from Damascus had been expected to take place early on December 26 but was delayed as there was now no secure territory for the militants to pass through, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent British-based monitoring group that tracks violence across Syria.
Buses were due to transport the fighters to Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State in northern Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah's Manar TV station said. But it fell through after the Jaysh al Islam rebel group's leader Zahran Alloush - through whose territory the convoy had been granted safe passage - was killed in an air strike on Friday, Manar said.
The arrangement was the first of its kind between Syrian authorities and Islamic State. It would have marked a significant success for the government of President Bashar al-Assad, increasing its chances of reasserting control over a strategic area 4 km (2.5 miles) south of the center of the capital.
It was unclear when, and if at all, the evacuation would take place. The delay deals a blow to U.N. efforts to end a years-long government siege of parts of the city controlled by a patchwork of rebel groups that has impeded the flow of food and humanitarian aid, starving many people to death.
The United Nations and foreign governments have stepped up efforts to broker local ceasefires and safe-passage agreements toward a wider goal of ending the civil war, in which more than 250,000 people have been killed.
The civil war was sparked by a Syrian government crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in early 2011. Islamic State militants have used the chaos to seize territory in Syria and Iraq. About 4.3 million Syrians have fled their country.