rebels, Syrian state media outlets and a war monitoring group said.
Well over
3,000 people have left Qaboun in two days of evacuations, paving the way for
the government to regain control of the area, the Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said.
They headed
for areas still under opposition control east of the Syrian capital, or for the
northwestern province of Idlib, also held by insurgents, it said.
Syria's
military released a statement saying it had "returned peace and security
to the Qaboun area" after killing many insurgents and blowing up tunnels
they had used for supplies.
"This
strengthened the perimeter of security around Damascus and chokes the terrorist
groups" to the east, it said, referring to rebels.
Damascus has
done a number of similar deals in recent months with the Syrian opposition,
supported in some cases by Syria's ally Iran and Qatar, which backs the rebels.
The government sees the deals as an alternative to failing peace talks.
The
opposition says the agreements amount to forced displacement of President
Bashar al-Assad's opponents from areas around the capital, and are often
reached after months or years of siege by government forces and their allies.
The United
Nations has criticized both the use of siege tactics which precede such deals
and the evacuations themselves as amounting to forcible displacement.
State TV
quoted the Damascus provincial governor as saying that Qaboun "is empty of
militants". It said army engineering teams had entered the district, on
the city's northeastern edge, to begin clearing it of mines and unexploded
ordnance.
The
Observatory said 1,300 rebel fighters and their families had left on Monday. On
Sunday, more than 2,000 rebels and their family members left Qaboun, state
media said.
State TV
said several hundred fighters had decided to stay in the district under the
agreement as government forces took control.
Many
residents and some rebels have chosen to stay, preferring not to move to Idlib,
areas of which are frequently targeted by air strikes.
REUTERS
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