CAIRO: At least 14 rebel fighters were killed on Sunday in a twin suicide attack on the offices of an opposition faction in northern Syria, a monitoring group reported. Two bombers detonated themselves in the local headquarters of Ahrar al Sham group in the village of Tal Touqan in the north-western province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added. The attack took place during a meeting inside the site, according to the watchdog that relies on a network of activists inside war-torn Syria. So far, there has been no claim of responsibility.
Idlib is mostly controlled by rebels and militants, including an Al Qaeda-linked group that recently battled Ahrar al Sham for rivalry.
Syria’s conflict, now in its seventh year, is believed to have drawn hundreds of foreign fighters into the country.
Meanwhile, the last buses carrying rebel fighters and their families prepared to leave a besieged district of Syria’s Homs on Sunday, the provincial governor said, completing a deal to bring the whole city back under government control.
Several hundred fighters left on Saturday and Sunday in the final phase of the evacuation of insurgents from Al Waer, long besieged by government forces and the last opposition-held neighbourhood in Homs, an early centre of the Syrian uprising.
Government forces backed by Russian military police had begun to take control of key parts of the district, a Russian officer told Syrian state TV.
Homs Governor Talal Barazi told reporters that in the coming hours “Al Waer will be empty of all militants and weapons”.
He said more than 700 rebel fighters would have left by the end of the final phase on Sunday, as well as at least 1,000 other people including their family members.
That brought to more than 14,000 the total number of people to leave Al Waer in several phases since the agreement began to be implemented in March, Barazi said. Among them were some 3,700 rebels, allowed to leave with their light weapons. State television showed rebels milling around, depositing bags and suitcases in front of buses, and holding Kalashnikov assault rifles as armed men from the government side watched the proceedings. — Agencies
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