A UN-backed truce deal reached for 2 Syrian front-lines

The deal was described in recent days by insurgent groups and by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia allied with Assad that had been trying for several months to seize Zabadani.

Iran, a key backer of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been accused of driving Sunnis away from core government-held areas and allowing Shiites to settle instead.

But the deal would also underline concerns about forced demographic changes in the Syrian civil war, now in its fifth year, which has already displaced almost half of Syria’s pre-war population.

Nasrallah said Russian Federation had been calling for months for a new coalition to fight against Islamic State which would include Syria, Iraq and Iran, fighting alongside the United States and its allies.

The agreement, reached under the supervision of the United Nations, enforces the withdrawal of militants from the border town of Zabadani, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the talks as saying on Thursday.

Pro-government forces launched an offensive to try to recapture Zabadani on the border with Lebanon in July. The quid pro quo assaults led to Turkey-brokered, and UN-facilitated, cease-fire talks between Iranian officers and representatives of Ahrar ash-Sham.

Speaking on Friday, Nasrallah also said that the party’s fighters and the Syrian army could have finished the battle for Zabdani in a couple of weeks but held off to free two Shiite villages in the northwestern Idlib province, The Daily Star reports.

In a video interview posted on social media Friday, al-Muhaysini, who is linked to al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, which is a member of the Army of Conquest, said the group’s fighters and other rebels would be allowed to leave Zabadani with their weapons.

The cleric said the rebels had to accept the negotiated transfer because of the “reality on the ground”, adding that the rebels had been besieged for months and were running out of ammunition. If people reach the destination without any problems, the first group of terrorists will be released from the encirclement in the town of Zabadani, a Damascus suburb.

Damascus had not yet requested combat troops, Nasrallah noted, but he said this could happen “at any time”.