![]() ![]() US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier this month condemned what he termed the "Assad regime’s brutal" assault on Daraa and called for an immediate end to violence "that killed civilians and displaced thousands." However, Moscow gave guarantees to Israel and Washington in 2018 that it would hold back Iranian-backed militias from expanding their influence in the strategic region. ![]() That deal forced thousands of mainstream Western-backed opposition fighters to hand over heavy weapons but kept the army from entering the bastion known as Daraa al-Balad. The Syrian army, aided by Russian air power and Iranian militias, in 2018 retook control of the province of which Daraa is the capital and which borders Jordan and Israel’s Golan Heights. The Russian move halted an attempt to storm the enclave by pro-Iranian army units led by the elite Fourth Division who hold sway in the region and had in recent days tightened a two-month siege, escalating shelling and pushing for a military offensive. Fifty opposition fighters and their families were evacuated on Thursday from the last opposition bastion in southern Syria under a Russian-sponsored deal to avert a military showdown in the strategic border area with Jordan and Israel, witnesses, the opposition and army sources said.Ī contingent of Russian military police on Tuesday entered the enclave to impose a plan that allows the army to take it over, while offering safe passage to former fighters who oppose the deal to leave for opposition areas in northwest Syria. ![]()
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