REUTERS - The evacuation of
rebel-held eastern Aleppo due to start at dawn has been delayed, perhaps until
Thursday, with an opposition official blaming Iran and its Shi'ite
militias
allied to President Bashar al-Assad for the hold-up.
A ceasefire
agreement brokered by Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, and Turkey ended
years of fighting in the city and has given the Syrian leader his biggest
victory yet after more than five years of war.
Officials in the
military alliance fighting in support of Assad could not be reached immediately
for comment on why the evacuation was delayed.
Rebel sources said
the ceasefire remained in place despite the delay in the evacuation plan.
"What is
stopping the agreement presently is Iranian obstinacy. But the deal still
stands, the ceasefire stands until now," said a commander with the Nour
al-Din al-Zinki group, speaking in a voice message to Reuters from eastern
Aleppo.
Sources on Tuesday
had given different expected start times for the evacuation. A military
official in the pro-Assad alliance had said the evacuation was due to start at
5 a.m. (10:00 p.m. ET), while opposition officials had been expecting a first
group of wounded people to leave earlier.
However, none had
left by dawn, according to a Reuters witness waiting at the agreed point of
departure. Twenty buses were waiting there with their engines running but
showed no sign of moving into Aleppo's rebel-held eastern districts.
"There is
certainly a delay," said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian
Observatory, a war monitor.
Officials with
Aleppo-based rebel groups accused Shi'ite militias backed by Iran of
obstructing the Russian-brokered deal. The pro-opposition Orient TV cited its
correspondent as saying the plan may be delayed until Thursday.
People in eastern
Aleppo have been packing their bags and burning personal possessions as they
prepare to leave, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed
militia allies when they restore control.
RAPID ADVANCES
The evacuation was
the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its
allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under
intense air strikes and artillery fire.
By taking full
control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided
by Russia's air force and an array of Shi'ite militias from across the region.
Rebels groups have
been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support
they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to
Assad by Russia and Iran.
Russia's decision to
deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned the war in Assad's favor
after rebel advances across key areas of western Syria.
In addition to
Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.
However, Assad is
far from taking back all of Syria. Wide areas of the country remain in the
hands of armed groups including Islamic State, which this week managed to
retake the desert city of Palmyra from Syria's army.
Russia regards the
fall of Aleppo as a major victory against terrorists, as it and Assad
characterize all the rebel groups, both Islamist and nationalist, fighting to
oust him.
But at the United
Nations, the United States said the violence in the city, besieged and
bombarded for months, represented "modern evil".
The once-flourishing
economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the
war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world's
worst refugee crisis and allowed the rise of Islamic State.
As the battle for
Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the plight of the 250,000
civilians who were thought to remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before
the sudden army advance began at the end of November.
Tens of thousands of
them fled to parts of the city held by the government or by a Kurdish militia,
and tens of thousands more retreated further into the rebel enclave as it
rapidly shrank under the army's lightning advance.
The rout of rebels
from their shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified
civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said
was a "complete meltdown of humanity". There were food and water
shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed.
"SHOT IN THEIR
HOMES"
On Tuesday, the
United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian
soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in
recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of "slaughter".
"The reports we
had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their
homes," said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. "There could be many
more."
The Syrian army has
denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and Russia said
on Tuesday rebels had "kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human
shields".
Fear stalked the
city's streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the
government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed
in their homes and awaited the Syrian army's arrival.
For all of them,
fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution added to the daily terror of
bombardment.
"People are
saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if
they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left
to die," said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last
rebel-held districts.
Terrible conditions
were described by city residents.
Abu Malek
al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets.
"There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury
them,” he said.
REUTERS
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