The Syrian army declared on Thursday the liberation of eastern Aleppo city in northern Syria, as the last batch of rebels left the city, making Aleppo city completely under the government control.
As President Bashar al-Assad's army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo on Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal.
Thousands of people were evacuated from the last rebel-held enclave of Aleppo on Monday in return for insurgents allowing people to leave two besieged pro-government villages in nearby Idlib province.
A new agreement has been reached for the evacuation of rebel fighters from the last pocket of territory they control in Aleppo, a senior Syrian military source told AFP Thursday.
Restoring full control over Aleppo, Syria's most populous city before the war, has been seen as critical to the fortunes of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a multi-sided civil war now in its sixth year.
The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo was delayed on Wednesday (Dec 14) and, while a war monitor said the reason was unclear, an opposition official blamed Shi’ite militias allied to President Bashar al-Assad for the hold up.
Civilians and rebel fighters were to start evacuating from Syria's Aleppo "within hours" under a deal reached Tuesday that would end years of opposition resistance in the city.
The Syrian army and its allies are in the "last moments before declaring victory" in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defences collapsed on Monday, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.
Syria's army and allies pushed into rebel-held parts of Aleppo's Old City on Tuesday, a monitoring group said, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year-old civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.
Russia said Monday it would hold talks with Washington on a total rebel withdrawal from Syria's Aleppo, where the army has made sweeping advances, but opposition factions rejected any evacuation.
The rapid victories the Syrian army is achieving in the northern city of Aleppo and the possible quick retrieve of the city will be the Syrian government's biggest win in the five-year-old war, and the rebels worst defeat, analysts say.
In the late-night hours and amid the chirp of crickets, Katryn welcomed a huddle of exhausted Filipino journalists in cheerful spirits like she was home. "Coffee?" she asked with a comforting smile.
The Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swath of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.
Syrian government forces have gained control of the northern section of the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo city in northern Syria, a monitor group reported on Monday.
Syrian air strikes and shelling killed 25 civilians in eastern districts of Aleppo on Thursday, a monitor said, on the third day of a wide-ranging regime assault on rebel-held areas.
Russian jets resumed heavy bombing of rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Tuesday after several days of relative calm, a rebel official and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
A nationwide ceasefire in Syria brokered by the United States and Russia went into effect on Monday evening, the second attempt this year by Washington and Moscow to halt the five-year-old civil war.
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