Syria Rebels Begin Evacuating Homs in Cease-fire Deal
Scores of Syrian rebels and civilians began evacuating the opposition-held area in Homs on Wednesday as part of a cease-fire agreement reached with Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Nearly 2,000 rebel fighters and their families will depart from the Waer district in Homs for other opposition-controlled areas throughout the country – leaving the city once known as the “capital” of the Syrian revolution entirely under government control.
Some 700 people – 400 women and children and 300 fighters – will be evacuated Wednesday, with more to follow by the end of the week, according to Homs governor Talal Barazi.
Women and children in Homs quietly boarded white buses Wednesday morning, AFP reports, while opposition fighters loaded themselves onto green buses in another area of the besieged district.
The buses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, are headed to the northwestern Idlib province, largely in the hands of the Army of Conquest rebel alliance.
The cease-fire deal states that Waer’s rebel forces, which include both secular and Islamic extremist factions, are to leave the district completely by the end of January.
U.S. Aiming for New York Syria Meeting on December 18: Kerry
The United States said Tuesday it will host a meeting for countries involved in the Syria peace process in New York on December 18, but the talks will largely depend on efforts to unite Syria’s fractured opposition in the coming days, Reuters reports.
“Depending on the outcome of both the Saudi-led conference of the opposition that is taking place in the next days, as well as a few other issues, it is our plan to try … (to) have a meeting in New York on December 18,” U.S. secretary of state John Kerry said.
“But again, it depends on the flow of events over the next week.”
In Vienna last month, countries involved in the talks agreed to a two-year timeline that would lead Syria through a political transition and toward national elections.
The plan includes formal negotiations between the Syrian government and representatives of the opposition from January 1.
To meet the timeline, Saudi Arabia is hosting a conference this week to unite Syria’s divided opposition and rebel groups.
Foreign Fighters Headed to Iraq and Syria Doubled in 2015: Report
More than 27,000 foreign fighters have joined Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq this year, twice as many as in 2014, according to a report released Tuesday by a leading intelligence consultancy.
The report by the New York-based Soufan Group signals that international efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters to extremist groups such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) have had little effect, AFP reports.
“The foreign fighter phenomenon in Iraq and Syria is truly global,” the consultancy said in its report.
“The Islamic State has seen success beyond the dreams of other terrorist groups that now appear conventional and even old-fashioned, such as al-Qaida. It has energized tens of thousands of people to join it, and inspired many more to support it.”
In 2015, according to the report, between 27,000 and 31,000 foreign fighters from 86 countries traveled to Iraq and Syria, more than double the 12,000 or so that made the journey in the previous year.
The Soufan Group added that some 20 to 30 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria were returning home.
As ISIS increasingly looks to carry out attacks overseas, the threat of returning fighters has created a major challenge for domestic security agencies across the globe.
Recommended Reads
- BBC: Syria’s Civilians Living a ‘Life Worse Than Death’
- The Atlantic: Can Putin Bomb His Way Out of Sanctions?
- The Washington Post: Chart: The Number of Foreign Fighters in Syria Surged in 2015
- The Guardian: The U.N. Taking Charge of Syria? There’s One Big Problem
- The Irish Times: Rival Gatherings Open New Fissure in Syrian Opposition
Top image: People are seen fixing their damaged shops in the covered market in the old city of Homs, Syria, on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015. Once Syrian opposition fighters start pulling out of the last rebel-held area of Homs this week, the city once known as the “capital of the revolution” will return fully to government control. But its inhabitants have only been trickling back and many neighborhoods are still ravaged and deserted – a sign of the enormous challenges the government faces in reasserting its authority over areas once held by the opposition. (AP Photo)