Syria Army, Police Celebrate Recapturing All of Damascus (+Photos)
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Syrian military and police forces are celebrating recapturing the last neighborhoods in Damascus that were held by Takfiri militants, including Daesh terrorists.
Syria state TV broadcast footage of a ceremonial police motorcade entering the Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood with sirens blaring on Tuesday, a day after the military declared they had recaptured the neighborhood from Takfiri militants, AP reported.
The state broadcaster then showed a police ceremony taking place in the neighborhood, much of it left in ruins and rubble from the fighting.
The government on Monday seized the Yarmouk Palestinian camp and adjacent neighborhoods of Tadamon and Hajar al-Aswad, putting Damascus fully under its control for the first time since 2012.
Tuesday, police units entered Yarmouk and Hajar al-Aswad and planted the two-star Syrian flag there, the state television reported.
It broadcast images of security forces atop a pockmarked multi-story building in Yarmouk where they had hung the national flag.
They had also plastered pictures of President Bashar Assad and his predecessor and father Hafez.
Other police officers gathered in the ravaged streets below and fired in the air in celebration.
"The police are present round-the-clock," said one officer interviewed on the state broadcaster.
"Special units are deployed across the camp to help any civilians and protect their belongings," he said.
Yarmouk, Hajar al-Aswad and the nearby district of Tadamon all lie in a southern pocket of Damascus that had been out of government’s control for several years.
Daesh overran Yarmouk in 2015, but the massive Palestinian camp had already been ravaged by years of rebel infighting.