The Syrian army and allied troops on Monday laid siege to the rebel-held enclave in Deraa and were poised to gain complete control of the city where the uprising against President Bashar’s Assad rule first erupted, rebels said.
Abu Shaima, a spokesman for the opposition in the southern Syrian city, said several thousand people were now encircled after the army pushed into a main base west of the city without a fight before a formal evacuation of rebels opposed to a Russian-brokered surrender deal.
“The army and its militias have besieged Deraa completely,” the rebel spokesman told Reuters.
A deal was reached on Friday between Russian officers and rebel representatives that surrendered Deraa city along with other towns in the southern province that borders Jordan in another victory for Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
Opposition fighters not ready to make peace with the army must first be allowed to evacuate to opposition-held areas in northern Syria before the hand over of weapons and the return of state sovereignty.
The rebels say the deal also does not allow the army to move into their bastions and allows for setting up local forces from ex-rebels under the oversight of Russian military police.
“There is a lot of fear about the unknown fate and we do not trust the Russians or regime,” Shaima added.
In other parts of the deal, Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels who once received Western support continued to hand over border posts along the frontier with Jordan, east of Deraa province, that it had been in control of since the early days of the conflict.
The army and its militias won a strategic victory after they captured Nassib crossing, the vital trade route that insurgents held for three years.