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Thousands stuck on road as Syria evacuation deal falters

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BEIRUT: Thousands of Syrians being evacuated from four besieged towns were still stuck on the road on Saturday a day after leaving their homes, as the hard-won deal ran into trouble.


An AFP correspondent at a marshalling point in rebel-held territory where around 5,000 evacuees from two government-held towns were awaiting onward transport said the buses had yet to move 30 hours after the operation began.


The Syrian Arab Red Crescent distributed food and water to the waiting passengers, who included 3,700 civilians, at Rashidin, west of government-held second city Mosul.


Around 2,220 evacuees from two rebel-held towns — Madaya and Zabadani — were similarly blocked at a transit point in government-held territory, one of them said by telephone.


The waiting passengers spent the night on their buses in Ramusa, where the Red Crescent also distributed food and water, Amjad al Maleh said by telephone.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the convoys were blocked because of rebel complaints that the evacuations from government-held Fuaa and Kefraya had breached the terms of the deal brokered by Iran and Qatar late last month.


The deal had stipulated that in the first stage 8,000 people, including 2,000 loyalist fighters, leave the two towns but in the event just 5,000, including 1,300 fighters left, the Britain-based monitoring group said.


A rebel official confirmed that there were differences over the number of loyalist fighters leaving but refused to elaborate as “negotiations are under way.”


The deal to evacuate the four towns is the latest in a string of such agreements through Syria’s six-year civil war. They have often proved controversial and there have been similar hitches in the past.


In another development,  a monitor said Saturday  that US-backed fighters have advanced to the edge of a key rebel-held town in northern Syria.


The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance supported by US-led coalition air strikes and special forces advisers, surrounded Tabqa in early April.


The town and nearby major dam are considered a key prize in a broader offensive for Raqa, the de facto Syrian capital of IS’s self-proclaimed “caliphate”, about 55 kilometres  to the east.


SDF fighters “are now hundreds of metres  from Tabqa”, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group.


The alliance was reported to have advanced overnight after driving the extremists from two areas just southeast and southwest of the town.


“Heavy fighting is taking place in the vicinity of the two suburbs,” Abdel Rahman said. — AFP


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