The Russian defense ministry said rebels could leave with their families and personal weapons through a secure corridor out of eastern Ghouta, where Moscow-backed government forces are making rapid gains in a fierce assault. “The Russian Reconciliation Center guarantees the immunity of all rebel fighters who take the decision to leave eastern Ghouta with personal weapons and together with their families,” said the defense ministry statement. The spokesman for one of the main rebel groups in eastern Ghouta, Failaq al-Rahman, said Russia was “insisting on military escalation and imposing forced displacement” on the people of eastern Ghouta, where the United Nations has said some 400,000 are living. Assad said on Sunday the Syrian army would continue the push into eastern Ghouta, an area of farmland and towns just outside Damascus which government forces have encircled since 2013. For the rebels fighting to oust Assad, the loss of eastern Ghouta would mark their heaviest defeat since the battle of Aleppo in late 2016 and end their ability to target the capital.

Source: bd News24 March 06, 2018 08:37 UTC