Syrian army pushes Daesh out of Yarmouk

LONDON: Daesh fighters began evacuating their final stronghold in southern Damascus on Sunday, a monitor said, bringing Syria's government closer than ever to flushing out the last threat to the capital.

After weeks of combat and heavy casualties, an apparent deal was reached for remaining Daesh fighters to leave Yarmuk and the adjacent district of Tadamun, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Daesh members burned their headquarters in Yarmuk before boarding buses with their relatives to leave the area, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

"The six buses left at dawn, heading east for the Syrian desert," he added.

Syrian state media and a Palestinian official have denied a deal was reached or that evacuations were taking place.

Al-Watan, a pro-government newspaper, said the militants are believed to have surrendered. The Observatory said Daesh militants began burning their posts in Yarmouk and adjacent areas. Residents reported smoke was billowing over the area.

Before the war, Yarmouk camp was home to one of the most prosperous Palestinian refugee communities in the Middle East.

Terror groups made the refugee camp as their base in 2012 and turned it into a heap of rubble, with its former residents scattered across the region.

"Yarmouk was once a symbol of Palestinian - if you like - prosperity; it was part of their place in the Middle East, one of the largest refugee camps that we had and yet today it lies in utter ruins," according to Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

In a related development on Saturday, Syrian army and allied fighters from popular defense groups managed to make further advances on terrorists' lines south of the capital, tightening the noose around foreign-backed terror groups.  

Reports said Syrian army was engaged in building to building cleansing operations of remaining terrorists in the northern part of al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood.

In a live broadcast, a reporter with Syrian state TV said the army operations in the Hajjar Al-Aswad area were nearing their end and insurgent lines were collapsing as columns of smoke rose from the area behind him.

According to the Syrian official news agency SANA on Sunday, combat tactics aimed at cleansing building blocks, tunnels and trenches, and fortified points of the lingering presence are currently being used in the region located to the south of the capital city Damascus.

The report noted that the Syrian Army is adamant about thwarting terrorists' attempts to hinder their advances aimed at fully liberating the al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood.

Army backed by Iranian allies launched an offensive against the rebels in southern Damascus a month ago. The offensive has brought more than 70 percent of the camp under government control.

The capture of the southern neighborhoods would bring the entire capital under government control for the first time since the war began in 2011.

Syrian army now control roads between Syria's three main cities for the first time since the war broke out.

Daesh has been driven from virtually all the territory it once controlled in Syria and neighboring Iraq, but is still present in remote areas along the border.

While Damascus has vowed to win back "every inch" of Syria, the map of the conflict suggests a more complicated time ahead from now on.

The US military is in the east and northeast, which is controlled by Kurdish groups. Turkey has sent forces into the northwest to counter those same Kurdish groups, carving out a buffer zone where anti-Syrian fighters have regrouped.

In the southwest, where foreign backed rebels hold territory at the Israeli and Jordanian border, Syria faces the risk of conflict with Israel which has mounted dozens of air strikes on Syria so far.