Hundreds of fatigued Syrian rebels give up the fight

Emad Fa'aas, a former rebel, serves ice cream to a child soldier in Aleppo months after he left the ranks of the Syrian opposition in order to support his family. (Raja Abdulrahim / Los Angeles Times)

For two years, Emad Fa'aas was a devoted #rebel fighter. In the early days when Syrian rebels took up arms against the government of President Bashar Assad, he joined other fighters in attacking military checkpoints, sometimes traveling to neighboring provinces.

When the fighting spread into his city of Aleppo he spent long stretches fighting on the front lines, at times separated from his family for an entire month.

These days his hands are stained red, from cherry ice cream.

The front lines are not far away, but now he holds an ice cream scoop rather than a gun. Gone are his fighting days, replaced with working at the nameless shop, with a commercial coffee maker but otherwise bare shelves, that he recently opened to support his family.

"I left because I no longer had the ability to feed my kids," said Fa'aas, 39, who has a wife, two sons and a young daughter. "My jihad now is for my family."

He joins the ranks of hundreds, if not thousands, of exhausted and disillusioned Syrian rebel fighters who have left the armed opposition to rejoin civilian life and resurrect a semblance of their former lives even as the country around them continues to crumble.

More than three years after the Syrian uprising began, marked by hope that it would succeed quickly, as in Tunisia and Egypt, optimism has been replaced with a sense of failure and a sentiment that the conflict has wrought little but destruction and loss.

Some have put down their guns and returned to the farming fields they left when the uprising began.

"A lot of people left because it's taking so long; they thought it was going to be a matter of yelling 'God is great' twice in protest and a few hits and it would be over," said Samir Zaitoun, a commander with Al Tawheed Brigade.

By his estimate, nearly half the fighters in Aleppo have left over the last year, most of them from small rebel groups. In the last six months the attrition has picked up as an emboldened Assad government retakes territory throughout the country: in Damascus and Homs, in central Syria, as well as in Aleppo, in the north.

But as the war continues in their absence, the departure of so many Syrian rebels could lead to more foreign fighters flocking into the country to fill the vacuum and join the fight against the government.

"It's better for me to pursue my education and my future," said Salaah, a former rebel fighter who did not want to give his full name for fear of endangering his family. "There is very little hope. These years were lost from our lives."

The 21-year-old, who left school when fighting engulfed his town, lost faith in the opposition and finally decided to defect when the Turkish refugee camp where his family is staying began offering classes for high school seniors. Within days he sold his Kalashnikov rifle for $1,000 and headed to Turkey.

"We did what we could," he said. "But in the end the country has been destroyed."

::

The first thing Fa'aas sold was his Kalashnikov.

Gradually his savings were depleted, and as the situation in rebel-held parts of Aleppo worsened amid government air bombardments, the boutique where he still occasionally worked sewing formal and wedding dresses closed down.
To feed his family, he sold his rifle to his militia's commander.
When that money ran out, he moved on to other possessions.

For months he sold piece after piece in his home, near the front lines in the Old City, starting with the imported bedroom set and two cameras he bought while vacationing in Cyprus. Then every item in the living room, including his mother's sewing machine. He couldn't part with the three comforters in the bedroom that she had sewn and embroidered by hand. But moving on to the kitchen, he sold everything except a broken freezer.

"Every time I would need money I would sell something," he said. He always sold at a fraction of the value, his desperation driving the price down further.

"Don't look at these sofas," he said in the living room, indicating a broken, lopsided couch given to him by a friend. "There was a fancy living room set in here. All of this is not mine."

The rest of the home's furnishings had been similarly assembled through the kindness of family and friends.

Now, the house where he raised his children lies abandoned, unrecognizable. A government sniper shoots at it every time the curtains flutter.

Fa'aas had already endured crueler losses.

In late 2012, as the city of Aleppo was breaking apart into government and opposition-controlled areas, his 8-year-old son, Muhammad, was shot and killed at a military checkpoint. Muhammad had fallen ill and his uncle was taking him to a hospital when they were stopped by soldiers.

When the soldiers checked the boy's identification, they discovered he was the son of a wanted man. They shot him twice while he was still sitting in the back seat of the car, Fa'aas said.

Less than a year later, another son, Amin, who was also 8 at the time, died of unknown, apparently natural causes. Though Fa'aas was torn by their deaths, especially Muhammad's, they served to further motivate him to fight the government.

As he spoke, his 2-year-old daughter walked in dressed in pink Minnie Mouse sweatpants and shoes, small hands tightly gripping two bags of snacks, and plopped herself in her father's lap. Fa'aas twirled her little ponytail between his fingers.

Each time Fa'aas was released from a government prison, after suffering brutal beatings and torture, he returned to the battlefield with a renewed fervor.

His breaking point came when his wife fell ill and he had no money for medicine and nothing left to sell.

He would be gone for a month at the front lines, and when he returned to his family he had nothing to give them. Wages were occasionally promised but never delivered.

He went to his militia commander and begged for 500 Syrian pounds, about $3.35. The commander sent him away with no money.

"We don't want personal funds, but we need to support our families," he said from the small, sparsely furnished friend's apartment where Fa'aas and his family have been allowed to live. "We would go to the militia leaders and they would say, 'We don't have any money,' but they are liars because we know they are getting support."

Even after he sold his gun, Fa'aas continued to fight with the rebels using a borrowed Russian-made Kalashnikov. But the day after the rebel leader refused to help him, Fa'aas finally quit and gave him back the gun. LA Times

ISIS positions in Iraq bombed by unknown planes

Isis fighters raise their weapons as they stand on a vehicle mounted with the trademark Jihadists flag in Anbar province.(AFP)

The positions of the Islamic State of #Iraq and #Syria (#ISIS) in the northern Iraqi city of al-Qaim were bombed by unknown fighter planes on Tuesday.

The White House denied U.S. planes carried out the airstrikes after an Iraqi television station reported that U.S. jets were behind the bombings.

Tribal sources told Al Arabiya News that Syrian fighter planes carried out the raids.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s air force has bombed Baiji - about 200km north of Baghdad, where ISIS fighters seized an oil refinery, according to Al Arabiya's correspondent.

Also on Tuesday, Iraq’s ambassador to Tehran said that the Iraqi government has not asked Iran for help against Sunni militants, Agence France-Presse reported.

The remarks by Mohammad Madjid al-Sheikh came after Iranian leaders repeatedly said they were ready to assist Baghdad against the insurgency that has taken control of a large swathe of Iraqi territory.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held crisis talks with leaders of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Tuesday urging them to stand with Baghdad in the face of the waves of insurgency gripping the country.

During his visit, Kerry was warned by Kurdish President Massoud Barzani that the rapid advances made by insurgents had already created “a new reality and a new Iraq,” signaling that the U.S. faces major difficulties in its efforts to promote unity among the country's divided factions, the Associated Press reported.

The U.N., meanwhile, said more than 1,000 people, most civilians, have been killed in Iraq so far this month, the highest death toll since the U.S. military withdrew from the country in December 2011.

Dramatic photo shows Syrian refugees fleeing to Jordan

Syrian refugee families pictured travelling into neighboring Jordan. (Photo courtesy of UNHCR)

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has published a dramatic photo showing Syrian refugees poring over the border to find safety in the neighboring Jordan.

The photo depicts Syrian refugees – some with white sacks on their backs – making their way through a narrow rocky pass, while thick clouds of dust linger in the air.

A recent UNHCR report shows that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people worldwide has, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people – a “massive increase” driven mainly by the Syrian civil war.

Until the end of last year the Syrian civil war had forced 2.5 million people into becoming refugees and made 6.5 million internally displaced, according to the report.

“We are seeing here the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.

“Peace is today dangerously in deficit. Humanitarians can help as a palliative, but political solutions are vitally needed. Without this, the alarming levels of conflict and the mass suffering that is reflected in these figures will continue.” Al Arabiya

Israel strikes 9 military targets in Syria

FILE Photo. An Israeli F16C fighter jet (AFP Photo / Menahem Kahana)

Nine Syrian military targets have been hit by Israeli jets and guided missiles, the IDF says, claiming it was a decisive response to a series of cross-border shootings to protect the citizens of Israel.

The strikes on targets in Golan Heights were carried out shortly after midnight, Haaretz reports citing an IDF official, who called it a direct response to Sunday’s deadly incident when an anti-tank projectile fired from #Syrian territory struck near the border fence on the #Israeli occupied Golan Heights.

“The shooting [on Sunday] was a very serious act of provocation, and a continuation of a series of attacks carried out over the past several months against IDF forces throughout the border region, and in this area specifically,” the statement reads.

A military command headquarters reportedly was among the targets hit in Syria.

Earlier on Sunday, in response to the killing of Israeli teen Mohammed Karaka, IDF artillery pounded military outposts on Syrian territory, with speculations about possible strikes against other targets.

The killed teenager was an Arab citizen of Israel, accompanying his father, a Defense Ministry civilian contractor, to the Golan, the ministry said, uncertain whether the boy was 15 or 13 years old. The father and two more people we injured in the incident.

An Israeli soldier prepares to load shells into his Merkava tank positioned near the Quneitra checkpoint on the border with Syria in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, on June 22, 2014. (AFP Photo / Menahem Kahana)

It was not clear who exactly fired the anti-tank missile that hit the Israeli border from an area contested by the Syrian army and the rebels.

Relations between Syria and Israel have been tense since the civil war erupted in the country more than three years ago.

Ripped by internal warring factions, numerous cross-border shooting and shelling have become a common occurrence in the Israeli controlled Golan Heights, which Tel Aviv secured following the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

IDF aerial retaliatory strikes were reported in January 2013, when Israeli planes allegedly struck deep within Syrian territory, reportedly targeting anti-aircraft weaponry outside Damascus.

Israeli warplanes also struck a Syrian air-defense base near the port city of Latakia in October 2013, as confirmed by US officials, with some experts speculating that the target was missile equipment that may have been transferred to Lebanese Hezbollah.

In May 2013, Syrian media reported "Israeli airstrikes" targeting military positions in Damascus, following bombing in Rif Dimashq governorate. In July 2013, RT reported that Israel used a Turkish military base to launch one of its recent airstrikes against Syria from the sea, a week after July 5 depot attack in Latakia. RT

Syrian President Bashar Assad declares general amnesty for prisoners

Syrians hold pictures of President Bashar Assad as they celebrate in Damascus after Assad was proclaimed the winner of the country's presidential election. (Joseph Eid / AFP-Getty Images)

rian President Bashar Assad, who won reelection last week amid the country's three-year civil war, issued a general amnesty for prisoners Monday.

The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the wide-ranging edict included the commuting of death sentences to life sentences, reduction of life sentences to 20 years, and some pardons.

The amnesty covers many prisoners held for violations of Syria's counter-terrorism law, which was introduced in July 2012 and gave authorities sweeping powers to apprehend individuals for crimes such as "spreading false news" or "promoting causes that would weaken national feeling or awaken sectarian bias," the news agency reported. Human rights activists contend that the law criminalizes any opposition activity.

The amnesty also includes non-Syrians provided that they surrender to authorities within a month. The Syrian government routinely accuses armed opposition forces of being made up of large numbers of foreign fighters.

Exact figures for the number of prisoners who will benefit from the amnesty were unavailable. International rights groups and opposition activists say tens of thousands of anti-government protesters and their supporters have been imprisoned.

Justice Minister Najm Hamad Ahmad hailed the amnesty as part of the "framework of social forgiveness and national unity" despite government forces "facing the powers of evil and darkness," a reference to the uprisings and fighting that have gripped the country since March 2011.

"The effect of the amnesty ... gives the chance for all who are in hiding or who have escaped from justice to reconcile their situation according to its edicts," he told the state news agency, clarifying that some crimes that led to death or permanent disability would not be pardoned.

The civil war has resulted in the devastation of large swaths of the country and the deaths of more than 160,000 people, according to some estimates.

Opposition activists have slammed the Syrian government for kidnapping and holding tens of thousands of Syrians in horrific conditions, often subjecting detainees to torture and extra-judicial killings. Rebels, especially the extremist Islamist groups that operate largely in the northern and eastern provinces of the country, have similar allegations leveled against them.

The government's amnesty, following a smaller scale pardon last week in celebration of Assad winning a third seven-year term in a pro forma election, was met with a mixture of hope and derision on social media.

"May God bring joy to those mothers for the return of their children ... the amnesty decision includes a large number of those detained," declared the Facebook community page Aleppo Eye Witness.

Another social media post said that those who would be released would immediately return to the fighting fronts, taking advantage of the "idiocy of the regime."

The pro-opposition, Britain-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published a statement lamenting that the decree comes after the deaths of many others.


"We in the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights congratulate those arrested who will be released to freedom by this pardon, which we do not consider to be 'generosity' on the part of the regime ... but instead it is the most basic of rights for the detained who were arrested for expressing their opinion."

Some rebel fighters viewed the amnesty with suspicion, saying that similar moves in the past had little effect and that the regime had published false names for those released.

"According to the regime's announcements, this pardon includes political prisoners, but so far none have been released, and there are many who have not been released although they were in prison from the beginning of the uprising," said Hassan Taqi Al-Din, an opposition activist in Damascus province contacted via Skype. "This pardon came now for Assad to prove to the world and the international community his 'good intent'... but the move on the ground is not at all like that."

Abu Huthayfa, a rebel spokesman based on the Turkish-Syrian border, took a more pragmatic tone.

"The battle in Syria is a military one, and events on the ground are what change things," Huthayfah said via Skype. "As for Bashar's edicts and the opposition's conferences and the statements of the U.S. State Department, they have no effect."
The LA Times

North Korea, Syria swap praise and Admiration

North Korea and Syria are seeking to improve relations as the war rages on in the latter. (Reuters)

A North #Korean delegation met with #Syrian President Bashar al-#Assad to improve relations recently, just days before the presidential elections. Assad stressed that the relations between the two countries “stem from the common destiny of their peoples.” The Official North Korean and Syrian news agencies, KCNA and SANA respectively, signed a cooperation agreement; both sides pledged “quality control” to match each other’s professional standards.

Finding time

The Syrian regime, while fighting a fierce war in different parts of the country, has found time to celebrate the birthdays of North Korea’s two former presidents. KCNA reported on February 1 from Pyongyang that “a Syrian preparatory committee for celebrating the birth anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il (the Day of the Shining Star) was formed on January 23. The director of the Higher Education Department of the Regional Leadership of the Syrian Baath Arab Socialist Party was elected chairman of the preparatory committee. The committee decided to organize colorful political and cultural events for praising the revolutionary career and exploits of Kim Jong Il on the occasion of the Day of the Shining Star.

Nearly a month later, while Aleppo’s barrel bomb war was going on, the Syria-based Palestinian Yarmouk Camp was starving while the Syrian regime prepared for the birth of Kin Il Sung, dubbed as “the day of the Sun.”

Portrait of Hafez al-Assad, October War Panorama, Damascus, Syria As painted by the North Korean artists who worked on the building.

According to KCNA, “a Syrian preparatory committee for marking the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung (Day of the Sun) was formed on March 16. The director of the Higher Education Department of the Regional Leadership of the Syria’s Baath Arab Socialist Party was elected chairman of the committee. It decided to arrange diverse political and cultural events to celebrate the Day of the Sun.”

The agency went as far as quoting a senior Syrian academic as saying that Kim Yong Un is “the greatest man in the world.” “World public is highly praising the greatness of supreme leader Kim Jong Un. The department’s head of the Political Faculty of the University of Damascus of Syria said that Kim Jong Un is identical to President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il in looks, traits and leadership. He went on: The world progressive people are praising Kim Jong Un for invariably glorifying the DPRK as an invincible socialist power, true to the cause of preceding leaders. World media are highly lauding Kim Jong Un as the most famous and greatest man in the world though it is not long ago that he started leading the DPRK.”

Syrian media

The Syrian regime’s media reported no less adulation and affection, showering the North Korean leadership with praise, and reporting on the official visits and solidarity. In an April 14 front page editorial, the official Al- Thawra newspaper wrote that “leader Kim Jung Un is the great human being who bears the intellect, leadership qualities and ethical traits of both leaders, Kim Il Sung, and Kim Yong Il. He also has the ultimate love and respect of his people. The Korean people will continue to pursue the cause of Socialism till the end, generation after generation, under the wise leadership of Kim Yong Un.”

The two autocratic states share a lot in common, they are both hereditary Socialist Republics with a ruthless Security apparatus. Also, the North Korean leader, Kim Yong Un, who like Assad inherited the presidency from his father after studying in Europe, recently demonstrated his commitment to his father’s ruthless legacy by reportedly executing his uncle. Among the reasons cited by the KCNA, the official North Korean agency, he “turned down the unanimous request of the service personnel of a unit of the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces to have the autograph letter sent by Kim Jong Un to the unit carved on a natural granite and erected with good care in front of the building of its command. He was so reckless as to instruct the unit to erect it in a shaded corner.”

Similarities

The many similarities between the countries, experts say, is not a coincidence. Lisa Wedeen wrote in her renowned book on Syria, “Ambiguities of Domination,” that Hafez Assad, the former Syrian president and father of the incumbent, “visited North Korea in September 1974 and may have been inspired by the cult there.”

Wedeen’s 1999 contention that the official language and symbols seek to prematurely kill politics, and “depoliticize people by orchestrating public performances” in return for their safety, appear to be outdated habits in a war in which he is widely mocked on the opposition’s side, according to activists.

The recent upsurge in the relations between the two countries may as well be a manifestation of their ruthless nature, Malek Abu Khair, an activist and former political prisoner believes. “They both share the same utter indifference to their peoples’ suffering.”

Aftermath hardly in doubt in 'grotesque parody of democracy' : Syrian Election

President Bashar al-Assad is almost guaranteed to emerge victorious in the Syria's presidential election.

Damascus, #Syria -- In the midst of a bloody and protracted civil war, the Syrian government is set to hold a presidential election Tuesday.

The outcome is hardly in doubt: #President Bashar al-Assad is almost guaranteed to emerge victorious in a vote that opposition groups and many Western countries say will be rigged from the start.
Syria isn't renowned for holding free and fair elections.

When he came to power 14 years ago, al-Assad ran unopposed, securing more than 99% of votes, according to state media. Seven years later, he won again with a similarly mountainous share of the vote. His father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled Syria with an iron fist for 29 years before he died in 2000.

Some analysts say the purpose of this week's vote, which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Syrian government not to hold, is to send a message to al-Assad's opponents, both in Syria and abroad.
Syria's presidential election: How fair can a vote be in a war zone?
'A coronation'
"It's a coronation of Assad, it's a celebration of his ability to survive the violent storm and basically go on the offensive," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.
The election is being held against the backdrop of a grinding three-year conflict that has killed around 150,000 people, displaced about 6.5 million people within Syria and prompted almost 3 million people to flee outside its borders.
Voting will only take place in areas controlled by the regime. Rebels hold significant areas of the north and east of the country.
The British Foreign Office has said the vote "will be a grotesque parody of democracy." The U.S. State Department says the Assad regime has taken steps "to make it difficult if not impossible to have a fair and free election in Syria."
Little known challengers
One aspect of this year's election distinguishes it from the previous foregone conclusions, though: al-Assad actually has people running against him -- although it's questionable how much of a challenge they present.
The two other candidates are relative unknowns: Hassan al-Nouri, a businessman and former government minister; and Maher Hajjar, a lawmaker.
Critics say they are just pawns or window dressing to give the election a veneer of democracy. But the Syrian government has dismissed any criticism of the process.
Hajjar has kept a low profile, but al-Nouri says he's serious about challenging al-Assad and is "trying to attack his weaknesses."
He claimed he would be "more aggressive and more effective" than al-Assad on economic, administrative and social issues.
But on the overarching question of the war, al-Nouri offers no dissent.
"Politically, I think he's doing what he has to do," he said.
Rebels divided
What al-Assad is doing is continuing the brutal offensive against those opposed to his regime, raining down barrel bombs on rebel-controlled parts of cities such as Aleppo and Deraa.
The opposition groups fighting against him are divided, with squabbling between factions and jihadis who have flocked from around the world to try to establish an Islamic state.
The rebels have lost ground around Damascus and Homs, and are under pressure in Aleppo and the south of the country.
Talks earlier this year mediated by the United Nations did little to change the situation, ending with the regime and the opposition firmly opposed.
Ban's office has warned that the elections are likely to worsen the situation, saying they "will damage the political process and hamper the prospects for political solution that the country so urgently needs."
Source: CNN

Tunnel bomb in Aleppo kills 40 Syrian soldiers

AMMAN - At least 40 Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday when rebels detonated explosives packed beneath an army base in Aleppo, activists and rebels said.

The #Islamic Front, an umbrella rebel organisation, claimed responsibility for the bombing, though the claim could not be immediately verified. A video posted on the internet showed a massive blast sending clouds of dust and debris into the air as gunshots rang out in the old Zahrawi area of Aleppo.

The front said 40 government soldiers were killed. The UK-based #Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 20 died in the blast and added that fierce clashes had erupted along the divided city’s frontlines, where fighting between rebels and troops has escalated in recent days.

#Rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad regularly carry out guerrilla attacks but have only recently begun using large tunnel bombs on military targets. Last week they claimed responsibility for blowing up a hillside army base and a hotel used by soldiers in Aleppo.

The government has vastly superior firepower and has intensified air strikes using crude barrel bombs on residential areas in rebel-held Aleppo, killing at least 132 civilians in the last three days, a local medical group said.

Gunbattles, air strikes, car bombs, shelling and executions regularly kill more than 200 people a day in Syria, where a conflict that started as a peaceful protest movement has killed over 150,000 people and forced millions from their homes. Despite the carnage and loss of swathes of territory in the north and east to insurgents, Syria plans to hold a presidential election next Tuesday that is all but certain to give Assad a third term. Opponents have dismissed the vote as a farce. -- Nation News

Almost 2,000 Syrians killed by barrel bombs in 2014 : NGO

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 500 children killed by primitive explosives pushed from planes

People inspect the rubble after a building collapsed following a reported bombardment with explosive-packed "barrel bombs" by Syrian government forces in the al-Mowasalat neighborhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on
April 27, 2014. (photo credit: AFP Photo/Aleppo Media Centre/Zein al Rifai)

EIRUT — Crude bombs dropped by #Syrian government forces on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo have #killed nearly 2,000 people so far this year, an activist group said Friday.

The grim figure is the latest addition to the deadly tally from Syria’s civil war, which has killed more than 162,000 people, according to activists. The crude bombs — known as barrel bombs — are shrapnel-packed explosive devices that Syrian forces have been rolling out of helicopters over rebel-held neighborhoods.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights — one of the main groups counting the dead in the three-year-long conflict — said Friday there were 1,963 deaths in 2014 from barrel bombs in Aleppo, including 283 women and 567 people under the age of 18.

According to the Observatory, 14 people are dying on average every day in Aleppo because of the barrel bombs. The containers, or barrels, are usually packed with hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of explosives as well as scraps of metal and are intended to cause massive damage on impact.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted in February demanded, among other things, a halt to all attacks on civilians in Syria and indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombardment, including the use of barrel bombs in populated areas.

In March, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said it used satellite imagery to identify at least 340 places in rebel-controlled areas of Aleppo that were damaged between early November and Feb. 20. The majority of the sites bore signatures of damage consistent with barrel bombs, it said.

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once its commercial center, has been carved into rebel- and government-controlled areas since opposition fighters launched an offensive there in mid-2012

Source: The Israel Time

Two brothers admit Syria terror training collusion : London

LONDON: Two brothers on Tuesday pleaded guilty in a British court to conspiring to attend a #terror training camp in #Syria.

Mohommod Nawaz, 30, and Hamza Nawaz, 24, were arrested in September as they entered the port of Dover on the southeast English coast.

Officers who searched their car allegedly found five rounds of ammunition for an AK-type gun, a balaclava, some "heavy-duty clothing", six mobile phones and a SIM card inside a Koran.

The men, from Stratford in east London, allegedly drove to France, then flew to Turkey before travelling over the border into Syria.

At the Old Bailey central criminal court, the brothers pleaded guilty to conspiring to attend a place used for terrorist training between January 1, 2012 and September 16, 2013.

Mohommod Nawaz also pleaded guilty to having ammunition without a firearms certificate, while the same charge against his brother was ordered to remain on file.

They will be sentenced on June 9.

The prosecution decided not to proceed with charges against a brother and sister living at the same address as the Nawaz brothers.

Following the brief court hearing, police urged worried families to contact officers if they thought relatives were planning to go to Syria.

"Travelling abroad to engage in terrorist-related activity is a serious offence and we will continue to prosecute, where appropriate, anyone engaged in this type of activity," said deputy assistant commissioner Helen Ball, the senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism.

"Our concerns include the actions of people who have attended terrorist training camps or who have fought in war zones, as well as the possibility that they return to the UK radicalised."

Police said last month that the numbers of Britons travelling to Syria were in the low to mid-hundreds, although other estimates put the figure at 400, with 20 Britons having been killed.

On May 20, a 31-year-old man became the first person to be convicted in Britain of terror offences related to the conflict.

Mashudur Choudhury, from Portsmouth on the southern English coast, travelled to Syria in October with the intention of attending a terrorist training camp, his trial heard.

He will be sentenced on June 13.
Source - AFP/rw

Six members of UN chemical-weapons mission kidnapped by armed groups : Syria

Foreign Ministry says 11 people in total were abducted in the countryside around Hama, central Syria.

Rebel fighters preparing to head out to the front line in Syria's northern Hama countryside March 30, 2014. Photo by Reuters

Syria's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that 11 people, including six members of a #UN chemical-weapons fact-finding mission, have been abducted by armed groups in central #Syria.

The ministry said the abductions occurred in the countryside around Hama in central Syria.

"Two cars were seized by terrorist groups carrying 11 people - five of them Syrian drivers and six from the fact-finding mission," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency.

A ministry statement blamed rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, accusing them of committing "terrorist crimes" against the UN staff and the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The organization, which monitors the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and oversees the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, sent a team to Syria this month to investigate claims that chlorine has been used in the region of Hama. The Haaretz

Syrian army missile kills 13, including 8 kids

This photo provided by the anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian young inspecting the rubble of houses that were destroyed by airstrikes from the Syrian government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, May 18, 2014. Syrian rebels captured a village in northwestern Syria on Sunday, killing more than a dozen government troops in heavy clashes and prompting the military to carry out airstrikes to try to dislodge the fighters, activists said. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center)

BEIRUT (AP) — A missile crashed into a rebel-held Syrian town while most people were at home sleeping, killing 13 people, activists said Tuesday.

The attack on northern town of Marea occurred late Monday, said a local activist who uses the name Abu al-Hassan. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack.

Those killed included an entire family composed of Mohammed Jafar, 70, his 40-year-old wife and their eight children. Abu al-Hassan said the Jafar's first wife died years ago, and he married for a second time. He said the marriage gave the retired mechanic a new lease on life: he decided to enroll in high school, and graduated when he was about 60, Abu al-Hassan said.

"He wanted to go to university but his grades weren't very good," according to al-Hassan, who said he used to attend annual exams with the man.

Abu Al-Hassan said he wasn't aware of any fighting in the area. He said the nearest front was 15 miles away (25 kilometers) in the area of Bureij.

A government airstrike also killed 10 people in the nearby northern town of Azaz early Tuesday, according to the Observatory.

Rights groups and local activists say #Syrian military forces often indiscriminately strike rebel-held areas with projectiles that can't be targeted properly, overwhelmingly killing civilians. Yahoo News

Syria general has been killed in warfare near Damascus

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on May 13, 2014, shows people gathering at the site of a car bomb in al-Arin neighborhood in the Damascus countryside. AFP PHOTO/HO/SANA

DAMASCUS: The chief of Syria's air defense forces, Gen. Hussein Isaac, has been killed in combat near Damascus, a security official told AFP Sunday.

The general died of wounds suffered in fighting at Mleiha, a key battleground southeast of the capital, making him one of the few top-ranking officers whose deaths have been announced during Syria's three-year war.

The air defense forces' headquarters is in Mleiha, a key flashpoint in current fighting around Damascus.
Because the rebels do not have an air force, the forces under Isaac's command have rarely been deployed for air defence.

"The regime's air defence force is to face a possible US attack, but in this war it is using its firepower against the rebels," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel-Rahman.

The army's entire arsenal and forces are deployed in Damascus's war against rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad, whose regime brands the uprising as a foreign-backed "terrorist" plot.
Abdel-Rahman called Isaac's death an "important psychological blow" to the regime.

For more than a month, the army backed by Hezbollah has been battling to recapture Mleiha, a strategic rebel bastion.
It has been under siege for more than a year, and under near-constant bombardment for more than a month.
The Observatory said that despite initial regime advances in Mleiha, the rebels have recovered ground, retaking several buildings around the central town hall.

While the army is squarely in control of Damascus, rebels still hold a number of towns and villages on the outskirts, despite a suffocating blockade and frequent air strikes and shelling
 - - - AFP

13 killed in Aleppo by Syria rebel rocket fire kills

AFP/Aleppo Media Centre/AFP - A file picture taken on March 18, 2014 shows Syrian rebel fighters firing a machine gun during clashes with pro-government forces in the northern city of Aleppo

Syrian #rebel rocket fire hit a government-held neighbourhood in the northern city of #Aleppo Friday, killing at least 13 people, state television said.

"The toll in rockets fired by terrorists on Ashrafiyeh district has risen to 13, including women and children," the report said.

Earlier, the #Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least seven people killed and five hurt in the attack on the western neighbourhood.

Once the country's economic hub, control of Aleppo has been divided between the government and opposition since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

Regime war planes have waged an aerial offensive on the eastern, rebel-held districts, frequently dropping barrel bombs on the area.

And opposition forces have also regularly fired rockets into the government-held part of the city, and clashes on the ground continue.

In recent weeks, the city has also been afflicted by a water outage after groups including Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, Al-Nusra Front, cut supplies from a pumping station in the Suleiman al-Halabi district.
After more than a week without water, the Observatory and Syria's Red Crescent Aleppo branch have reported the return of supply to some parts of both government and rebel areas of the city.

On Thursday, the Red Crescent's Aleppo branch said on Twitter that the pumping station had resumed operations, but it was unclear if all parts of the city were receiving water yet.
Source: AFP

Friends of Syria' group set for London talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in London on Wednesday for the meeting

Foreign ministers from 11 Western and Arab nations are due to meet in London to discuss new ways of supporting the Syrian opposition.

The Friends of Syria group will also discuss the country's dire humanitarian situation. US Secretary of State John Kerry is among those attending.
The meeting comes days after #UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi stepped down over lack of progress in ending the crisis.

Syria's three-year conflict has left some 150,000 people dead.
The Friends of Syria group is made up of Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the US.

It was set up in 2012 in response to moves by Russia and China to block UN resolutions on Syria.
A UK Foreign Office spokesman said it was "the right time" for countries who support a democratic future for Syria to come together.

"Foreign ministers will discuss how best to significantly step-up our support to the Syrian opposition, make urgent progress on improving the deteriorating humanitarian crisis and reinvigorate a political process that has stalled due to regime intransigence," the spokesman said

Foreign ministers will discuss the plight of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees

Thursday's meeting is the first time the group has met since January.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says that since then, peace talks in Geneva have collapsed; Mr Brahimi has stepped down and rebel forces inside Syria have lost ground to President Bashar al-Assad.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the "hopelessly divided" international community was partly to blame for leaving Mr Brahimi battling "almost impossible odds" in brokering a peace deal.

Efforts to reconvene peace talks were dealt a fresh blow when Mr Assad announced presidential elections for 3 June. He is seeking a third seven-year term.

The idea was dismissed by the US as "a parody of democracy" and Mr Ban said it could torpedo efforts to broker a peace deal.
Source: BBC News

Days after cease-fire, Homs residents return to sift through homes devastated by war

Aftermath of the besieged Syrian city of Homs: Following a nearly two-year clash between rebels and government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a complex deal was made that allowed rebels to exit the city of Homs and government troops to move in.

HOMS, #SYRIA — Those who could salvage nothing substantial picked up tokens of their past lives: a bunch of red plastic roses, a piece of crystal chandelier, a few dust-clogged books. It was the first time displaced residents of this central Syrian city had laid eyes on their homes in more than two years, and for many, little was left.

Block after block of Homs lies devastated, after #war pulled the heart from this Syrian city that the opposition once proudly called “the capital of the revolution.” A deal last week with the government, which granted rebel fighters a safe exit from their last pockets of control, is allowing people who had fled the chance to return and survey the damage.

The city’s old clock tower, once the scene of mass protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is now the gatepost to the bombarded Old City and other parts of Homs. On Wednesday, the Syrian flag is expected to be raised above it, in a government ceremony that will be a bitter blow to the rebels who fought here.

The return of central Homs to government hands has put Assad in a position of confidence as he prepares for a presidential election, which has been dismissed by the United States and others as a sham. His certain win of a third seven-year term will further distance the possibility of any talks on political transition. And although the government has seen setbacks elsewhere, the fall of Homs is a major step in its attempt to secure central Syria.

But Homs is a broken prize.
Three years of airstrikes and artillery, mortar and rocket fire have pummeled formerly ­rebel-held areas of the city to a state beyond recognition. So much so that on Monday, Hussein Ali, 21, could not find his family shop in the al-Qusoor neighborhood, one of those hit hardest. He hunched at the end of a bombed-out street.

“It’s too painful for words,” he said.

The obliterated streets have been a hive of activity since residents were first allowed to return over the weekend, after the last rebels were bused out.

Families hired trucks and crammed them full of their remaining belongings. They fumbled with keys in stiffened locks that had not been opened for two years. They braced themselves for what they would find.
For some, it was better than expected.

“We thought we’d find the place flattened to the ground,” said Abu Musab, a 44-year-old resident of the neighborhood of Jurat al-Shayyah, who left Homs 2½ years ago.

It was hard to see his cause for optimism as he stood under two gaping holes in his ceiling. But he proclaimed himself “happy to find that it’s not just rubble that we have to pitch a tent on.”

Driven by hunger

The government is holding up the evacuation deal here as a shining example of its “reconciliation” program to end the conflict, now in its fourth year.

It took two years of siege tactics to wear down the Homs opposition fighters to this point. Cut off from the outside world, the rebels were corralled into an ever-smaller patch of land.

Today, Syrian flags hang over bombed buildings. “Now the sun of freedom” rises, says one sign erected by the government. Beneath those signs, rebel graffiti is still visible. “We are strong,” reads a message by the Liwa al-Haqq rebel group. Another message threatens informers. Plastered on buildings are fliers from November calling on opposition groups to muster fighters for a siege-breaking attempt that would never succeed.

In February, as their morale flagged, hundreds of rebels took the opportunity to leave the besieged areas of Homs under a United Nations-sponsored truce.
Khalid Terkawi, 26, was one of them. He surrendered at a government clearing center in a school in central Homs, where he and other fighters are being held until authorities determine whether they are eligible to be freed.
Like many others, Terkawi was driven from the rebellion by hunger. He said he became disillusioned with rebel leaders who hoarded food. More than 1,000 opposition fighters have handed over their weapons at the school, according to the center’s director, Ammar Hishma.
Those who skipped military service or defected from the army face a longer clearing process. Some are preparing themselves to fight for the government that was not long ago their enemy, because they are required to serve their mandatory conscription.
“We were so depressed by the end,” said Hassan Hassoun, 21, who fought in the Asedik Brigade until he surrendered 15 days ago. “We lost hope. We came to the edge of death. We didn’t care anymore.”
Those who didn’t turn themselves in — a total of about 1,930 people, according to Homs governor Talal al-Barazai — were allowed last week to go with their weapons to rebel-held territory north of Homs.
Reconciliation efforts are underway there and in the rebel-held town of Rastan, Barazai said, adding that the government on Tuesday began releasing 104 prisoners as a confidence-building gesture.

How did we get to this?

The Rev. Ziad Hilal, a Jesuit priest, rode buses with the opposition fighters as they left the ruined remains of the Old City. Rebel leaders had asked prominent religious figures to join them on the trip to ensure their safety.

“It was Homsi people leaving their area, and feeling the pain of that, but it was also Homsi people waiting to come back in,” he said. “The same people, all Homsi. How did we get to this?”
As he spoke, he was seated next to the grave of the Rev. Frans van der Lugt, a Dutch priest who made Syria his home and refused to leave the besieged areas of the Old City, only to be assassinated just weeks before the evacuation deal.

The Old City had been home to 80,000 Christians, but by the end of the siege, there were just 23. As they returned Monday, many of them were overcome with emotion.

“Let us live with dictators,” said the Rev. Michael Rabaheih, from the Greek Orthodox church in the neighborhood of Hamadiya, little of which is left standing. “If this is freedom, we don’t need it.”
Not far away, the iconic Khalid ibn al-Walid mosque is gravely damaged. The ceiling has caved in over the domed mausoleum, a pilgrimage site for Sunni Muslims. Shiite slogans were spray-painted on the walls during the fighting, an act that has exacerbated sectarian divides.

In the destroyed heart of the city, it was too early to talk of reconstruction plans. But as they picked through what was left of their belongings, families vowed to rebuild their lives there — if they are allowed to return for good. They greeted old neighbors, the atmosphere thick with emotion.

“Even if they gave me a palace in Damascus, I’d still come back here,” said Abu Musab, the Jurat al-Shayyah resident. “When you leave your place, you lose something of yourself. When you come home, you know who you are.”
Source: Washington Post

Syria must hand over all chemical arms

The #UnitedStates urged both #Syria and #Russia on Friday to ensure that the remaining stockpile of Syrian chemical weapons is handed over to #UN inspectors for destruction.

U.N Official

‘We still continue to believe that the Assad regime can and must begin to take the necessary steps, including the packaging and destruction of certain materials on the site to demonstrate it is determined to fulfill its obligation,’ State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. The UN’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is overseeing the elimination of Syria’s toxic arms, has said some 92 percent of the declared stockpile has been removed from the country or destroyed.
But UN Special Coordinator Sigrid Kaag said Thursday that dangerous conditions on the ground have made it impossible to access the remaining chemical weapons containers. Psaki stressed, however, that the remaining eight percent was in territory held by Syrian #President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

‘We need to continue to look for ways to get there regardless, that the regime has the responsibility to remove these weapons,’ Psaki told reporters. Washington remains skeptical as to whether Assad has revealed the full extent of his country’s stockpile. ‘We have never taken the Assad regime at its word and we continue to approach this process with our eyes wide open,’ Psaki said.

There are concerns that the regime may have used chlorine gas in an April attack. Chlorine, which has may uses, was not among the chemicals which the #OPCW had required Damascus to declare. The chemical weapons issue was raised during a phone call between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who struck a deal in September to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. The two nations reached the agreement, which sets a June 30 deadline for the destruction of the whole stockpile, after a sarin gas attack in the #Damascus suburbs in August killed hundreds of people.

‘Let’s not forget that we’ve now removed 92 percent of the 100 percent of the declared’ arms, Psaki said. ‘That is a significant step forward. Does more work need to be done? Yes. But these are chemical weapons that the Assad regime will never again be able to use against their own people.’
Source: The Nation News

Syrians return to damaged homes after rebels leave

HOMS, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of Syrians, some snapping photographs with their cell phones, wandered down paths carved out of rubble in the old quarters of Homs on Friday, getting their first glimpse of the horrendous destruction that two years of fighting inflicted on rebel-held parts of the city.
The scenes that greeted them were devastating: City blocks pounded into an apocalyptic vista of hollow facades of blown-out buildings. Dust everywhere. Streets strewn with rebar, shattered concrete bricks, toppled telephone poles and the occasional charred, crumpled carcasses of cars.

Syrian civilians return to their neighborhood in the old city of Homs, Syria on Friday, May 9, 2014, where bulldozers cleared rubble from the streets of battle-scarred districts in the central Syrian city after government troops entered the last rebel-held neighborhoods as part of an agreement that also granted opposition fighters safe exit from the city. (AP Photo)

For more than a year, President Bashar Assad’s troops blockaded these neighborhoods, pounding the rebel bastions with his artillery and air force. Under a deal struck this week, the government assumed control of the old quarters, while in return some 2,000 rebel fighters were granted safe passage to opposition areas north of Homs.
The final piece of the agreement fell into place Friday afternoon as the last 300 or so rebels left Homs after an aid convoy was allowed into two pro-government villages in northern Syria besieged by the opposition. The aid delivery was part of the Homs agreement.
The withdrawal was a major victory for the government in a conflict that has killed more than 150,000 people since March 2011. The deal handed Assad control of the city once known as “the capital of the revolution,” as well as a geographic linchpin in central Syria from which to launch offensives on rebel-held territory in the north.
Even before the last rebels departed, government bulldozers were clearing paths through the heaviest rubble in Homs‘ battle-scarred districts Friday. It marked the first time that government troops have entered these neighborhoods — the last rebel bastions in the city — in more than a year.
Homs governor Talal Barazi said engineering units were combing Hamidiyeh and other parts of the old quarters in search of mines and other explosives. State TV said two soldiers were killed while dismantling a bomb.
The SANA state news agency reported that army troops discovered two field hospitals in the neighborhoods of Bab Houd and Qarabis, as well as a network of underground tunnels linking the districts to each other and to the countryside.
An Associated Press reporter on a military-led tour of Homs said soldiers and pro-government militiamen fanned out across the districts to provide security. In Hamadiyeh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood before the fighting caused residents to flee, people trickled back in to check on their properties.
Imad Nanaa, 52, returned to examine his home for the first time in almost three years. Miraculously, he found it almost intact, compared to other houses with shattered windows and crumbling walls.
Speaking nervously and hurriedly because he wanted to leave as quickly as possible, Nanaa said he was looking forward to coming back with his family as soon as the army allowed it.
“This deal has saved us from more blood and destruction,” he said.
Later, hundreds of men, women and children — some in strollers — walked through parts of the eight-mile-long old quarters, flashing victory signs and taking pictures. Some men in the first group dashed inside, passing burned-out cars and heavily damaged buildings.
People returning were required to hand over their IDs to the troops upon entering the formerly rebel-held districts. The soldiers then returned the papers as the people filed out later.
One man walked out with a guitar under his arm. A woman emerged from her home carrying a stack of photo albums. Source: Washington Times

Attacks hit Syria's two major cities, kill 50 people

In this photo which AP obtained from the Syrian official news agency SANA, and has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, damages are seen after a series of mortar shells hit Damascus, killing more than a dozen people and wounding scores in Syria, — Photo by AP

#DAMASCUS: A car bomb went off in the central #Syrian city of Homs on Tuesday, killing 36 people just hours after a mortar attack on the capital, Damascus, killed 14, government officials and state media said.
The attacks came a day after #President Bashar Assad announced his candidacy for the June 3 presidential elections, a race he is likely to win amid a raging civil war that initially started as an uprising against his rule.
A Syrian government official said the car bomb that hit Homs exploded in the city's predominantly Alawite district of Zahra.

Along with the 36 killed, 85 people were wounded in the blast, the official told The Associated Press over the telephone from Homs. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to media. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 13 people, including five children, were killed and that more than 40 were wounded in the Homs bombing. Syria state TV only said the car bomb in Homs caused ''a large number'' of casualties.
And in Damascus, several mortar shells slammed into the predominantly Shia neighborhood of Shaghour in the morning hours, killing 14 people and wounding 86, Syria's official SANA news agency and state TV reported.

It was the deadliest mortar attack in the Syrian capital since the conflict began in March 2011.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the Homs and Damascus attacks Tuesday.
Rebels fighting to oust Assad from power have frequently fired mortars into the capital from opposition-held suburbs. Armed opposition groups have also attacked Syria's cities with car bombs in the past months.
An Al Qaeda-linked group has previously claimed responsibility for several car bombs in the capital and other cities.

Many of the opposition-held neighborhoods around Damascus have been under a crippling government blockade for months, with no food and medicine allowed to reach trapped civilians inside.
SANA blamed the attacks on terrorists, a term used by Assad's government for rebels.
The Observatory also reported the mortar attack in Damascus, saying 17 people were killed.
The group, which tracks the conflict through a network of activists on the ground, said the death toll was likely to rise because of the many wounded.
The conflicting numbers could not immediately be reconciled but different casualty tolls are common in the immediate aftermath of large bombings.

An official at the Damascus Police Command told The Associated Press that two of the mortar shells landed near a religious school in the capital.
Several students who were attending classes at the school were among those killed and wounded in the attack, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.
Homs has been the opposition stronghold since the beginning of the uprising against Assad that erupted in March 2011. The city, Syria's third largest, has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the civil war that followed the initially largely peaceful revolt.

Meanwhile, four more candidates announced their candidacy for the June presidential election on Tuesday, state TV said, bringing the number of presidential hopefuls to 10.
Syria's opposition and its Western backers have blasted the decision to hold presidential elections amid the country's three-year conflict, which has killed
more than 150,000 people and driven a third of the country's population from their homes.

Syria's foreign ministry rejected the criticism, saying the decision was ''sovereign'' and warned that ''no foreign power will be allowed to intervene'' in the process.
In the Iranian capital, Tehran, spokeswoman of Iran's Foreign Ministry Marzieh Afkham welcomed the elections, saying the vote will be ''an opportunity for peace and stability'' in Syria.
Iran has backed Assad throughout the conflict, providing his government with millions of dollars in economic aid and military support through its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

''We think the election is a step closer to ending the crisis, stopping the war and support for peace and stability in Syria,'' Afkham said.

Source: The Dawn News

Syria rebels in final retreat from heart of Homs

HOMS: The last rebels were leaving the centre of the battleground city of Homs on Thursday, handing a symbolic victory to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ahead of a controversial election.
Rebels hit back in the historic heart of Aleppo, blowing up a luxury hotel-turned-army position after tunnelling under the front line which divides the main city of northern Syria.
At least 14 soldiers and pro-government militiamen were killed in the explosion and its aftermath, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Around 1,000 rebel fighters have left the Old City of Homs under the unprecedented negotiated evacuation that began Wednesday, according to figures given to AFP by provincial governor Talal Barazi.
But seven buses carrying the last 300 fighters were stopped because militant fighters were refusing to allow food supplies into two rebel-besieged Shiite towns in Aleppo province, the Observatory said.
Barazi said they were stopped at the northern exit from the Old City, without giving a reason.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory, said militants were limiting entry of supplies to Zahraa and Nabol to two trucks, instead of 12 as agreed by the regime and rebels in negotiations to which they were not a party.

Barazi earlier said more than 200 fighters had been evacuated Thursday, in addition to 980 people, mostly rebels but including some women and children, bussed out of the Old City on Wednesday.
The pullout, following an army siege of nearly two years, leaves the rebels confined to a single district on the outskirts of a city that what was once a bastion of the uprising.
Barazi said negotiations were well advanced for the rebels to leave that neighbourhood too in the coming weeks.
He said the fighters and some civilians evacuated with them were bussed out to the opposition-held town of Dar al-Kabira, 20 kilometres (13 miles) north of Homs.

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'Come on, shoot me!'

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Government troops played football on the square housing Homs's landmark clock tower, once the scene of the city's massive anti-government protests.
A soldier climbed onto the rooftop of a house and told AFP: “This is the first time I climb up here without fearing snipers.””Come on, shoot me!” he called out to another soldier, who took a photograph of him.
It is not the first deal between the government and the rebels — a number of ceasefires have been agreed on the outskirts of Damascus.
But it is the first time that rebel fighters have withdrawn from an area they controlled under an accord with the government.
The Syrian government allowed the remaining rebels in Homs to pull out with their personal weapons in return for the release of 40 Alawite women and children, an Iranian woman and 30 soldiers held hostage by rebels elsewhere in Syria, a rebel spokesman said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory monitoring group confirmed that all the hostages had been released by Thursday afternoon.
The deal, in negotiations overseen by the ambassador of the Syrian regime's close ally Iran, also involved the distribution of aid into Nubol and Zahraa.
Source: The Dawn News