ALEPPO: Hundreds of civilians and rebels left Aleppo on Thursday under an evacuation deal that will allow Syria's regime to take full control of the city after years of fighting. The rebel withdrawal began a month to the day after President Bashar al-Assa

30 pm (1230 GMT).
A Syrian military source told AFP that 951 evacuees, including 108 wounded, were in the convoy. Most were civilians but about 200 rebel fighters were among them, the source said. The convoy arrived just over an hour later in opposition territory about five kilometres (three miles) west of the city, a doctor at the scene said. "The wounded will be transferred to... nearby hospitals for treatment," said Ahmad al-Dbis, who heads a unit of doctors and other volunteers co-ordinating the evacuation of wounded people.
The evacuees spent hours gathering earlier at a staging area in Aleppo's southern Al-Amiriyah district. An AFP correspondent there saw people piling onto the green buses, filling seats and even sitting on the floor, with some worried that there would not be another chance to evacuate.
Many were in tears and some hesitated to board, afraid they would end up in the hands of regime forces. On the dusty window of one of the buses someone had written "One day we will return". Each bus carried a member of the Syrian Red Crescent dressed in the organisation's red uniform, riding at the front next to the driver. Ingy Sedky, the International Committee of the Red Cross's spokeswoman in Syria, said the first convoy included 13 ambulances and 20 buses carrying civilians.
Once the first convoy arrived safely "it will return and collect more people for a second journey and continue like that. We will go today for as long as conditions allow," she told AFP. Syrian state television reported that at least 4,000 rebels and their families would be evacuated under the plan. It said preparations were underway for a second convoy to leave rebel-held territory.
A first evacuation attempt on Wednesday morning fell apart, with artillery exchanges and resumed air strikes rocking the city until the early hours of Thursday. But the agreement, brokered by Syrian regime ally Moscow and opposition supporter Ankara, was revived following fresh talks. The defence ministry in Moscow said that Syrian authorities had guaranteed the safety of the rebels leaving the city.
The head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, told reporters in Geneva that most of those evacuated from Aleppo would head to opposition stronghold Idlib, in Syria's north-west. On Thursday, nearly 30 vehicles were headed to Fuaa and Kafraya to evacuate sick and wounded residents, the governor of neighbouring Hama province, Mohamed al-Hazouri, told state news agency SANA.
More than 465 civilians died in east Aleppo during the assault and another 149 were killed by rebel rocket fire on government-held areas, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. The United Nations this week condemned alleged atrocities being carried out by pro-government fighters, including reported summary executions of men, women and children. More than 310,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began, and over half the population has been displaced, with millions becoming refugees. The United States and other Western nations, Turkey, and Gulf Arab states all backed opposition forces during the war but their support was limited.