Daesh Terrorists Leaving Last Stronghold near Damascus
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Remaining Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorists were evacuated from their last stronghold near Damascus on Sunday in a withdrawal that will restore state control over the area.
The Takfiri militants left the Hajar al-Aswad area and Yarmouk after the Syrian army and its allies tightened their noose around them there, SANA reported.
Western media reports said that the terrorists were allowed out of the areas after reaching an agreement with Damascus.
On Saturday, however, a Syrian military source denied that any agreement had been reached.
With the recovery of Yarmouk, the Syrian government will have crushed the last enclave in western Syria, though swathes of territory at the borders with Turkey, Iraq and Jordan remain outside its control.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also confirmed their evacuation and said buses had entered the enclave after midnight to take out the militants and their families. They had departed in the direction of the Badia, a sparsely populated area to the east of the capital.
Takfiri terrorists have lost much of the territory they once held in Syria amid sweeping gains by government forces on the ground.
In April, Syrian forces managed to retake the Eastern Ghouta and Eastern Qalamoun regions near the capital.
For years, the areas had served as a launch pad for deadly terror attacks against civilians in Damascus.
