Buses enter Syrian border city to evacuate fighters underneath UN-sponsored deal

Three Syrian towns are set for evacuation in accordance with the second stage of a UN-backed peace deal between warring sides in the country, sources say.

Under the agreement, rebel fighters in Zabadani near Lebanon have been granted safe passage to Beirut airport.

The families from Kefraya and Fuaa are being taken to Turkey from where they will go to Lebanon.

Both convoys are taking place under the auspices of the International Committee for the Red Cross.

A deal to evacuate thousands of jihadists and civilians from southern Damascus was apparently derailed on Saturday after the death of rebel chief Zahran Alloush.

The mostly Sunni Muslim rebel fighters going to Turkey would then be able to go back to rebel-held areas in Syria through the northern Turkish border or stay for treatment, according to rebel sources close to the negotiations. Ceasefires in Zabadani and the two Shiite towns were brokered by Iran and Turkey in September.

The deal has sparked some concern 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 and killed more than 250,000 people.

Local reports said in September that the agreement, which has been concluded between an Iranian delegation, representing Syrian government, and the Jaish al-Fateh and Ahrar al-Sham rebels, will include halting battles in other areas, such as towns adjacent to Zabadani, namely Madaya, Buqain, Surghaya and the surrounding military posts.

The Sunni rebels in Zabadani had been under siege from Syrian government forces and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah. The mountain resort had been subjected to intense attacks by government forces and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group who were trying to capture the strategic area that is located a few miles from the Lebanese border and the highway that links Beirut with the Syrian capital, Damascus.