Buses carrying Syrian civilians and rebels began leaving the last opposition holdout in Eastern Ghouta Tuesday on a second day of evacuations, as the regime eyed the total reconquest of the enclave. Evacuations of Jaish al-Islam fighters and their families from the former rebel bastion's main town of Douma started Monday under a Russia-brokered deal.
Jaish al-Islam has not yet confirmed the accord, amid reports hardliners within the group were refusing to leave their positions. The reported deal is the latest in a string of agreements that have seen tens of thousands of people - rebels and civilians - leave the onetime stronghold outside Damascus for the north of the country.
Russia-backed regime forces have retaken control of 95 percent of Eastern Ghouta since February 18 through a combination of a deadly air and ground assault and evacuation deals. The recapture of Eastern Ghouta would mark a major milestone in President Bashar al-Assad's efforts to regain control of territory seized by rebels during Syria's seven-year civil war.
An AFP correspondent saw six buses carrying people leave the enclave on Tuesday via the regime-held Wafideen checkpoint. A woman and small child peered out of a bus window, a teddy bear backpack lodged beside their seat. Cracks spread from a hole in the windscreen of one bus. State news agency SANA said "a number of buses" carrying Jaish al-Islam fighters and their family members had exited through the checkpoint. In previous evacuations, buses leaving Douma have gathered near Wafideen or on the side of the motorway outside Damascus, and waited for hours for others to join them before setting off as a full convoy to northern Syria.
In a first wave of evacuations of Jaish al-Islam fighters from Douma, more than 1,100 people - rebels and family members - set off late Monday to the rebel-held town of Jarabulus in northern Syria, SANA said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, which relies on sources on the ground, said earlier on Tuesday that divisions continued within the rebel group.
"There is still a hardline wing in Jaish al-Islam that refuses the deal," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. Jaish al-Islam has around 10,000 fighters in its ranks, the Observatory says.
In video footage published by the group online on Sunday, leader Essam al-Buidani told men in a mosque: "We will stay in this town and will not leave." But "those who want to leave should leave", he said.
Monday's evacuation came after more than 46,000 people - including fighters from other areas of Eastern Ghouta - left on buses to the northwestern province of Idlib, the last in Syria to remain largely outside regime control. Backed by Russia, Assad's forces have scored a series of victories over rebel forces in recent years, often through campaigns of siege, aerial bombardment and ground offensives that have drawn widespread international condemnation.