Buses to evacuate militants of the Islam Army as well as the kidnapped people enter the Wafideen area near Douma, northeast of Damascus, Syria, on April 8, 2018. The Islam Army rebels will evacuate the Douma district east of Damascus and release the kidnapped people under a new deal reached Sunday with the Syrian government forces, state TV reported. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)
DAMASCUS, April 8 (Xinhua) -- The Islam Army rebels will evacuate the Douma district east of Damascus and release the kidnapped people under a new deal reached Sunday with the Syrian government forces, state TV reported.
The priority of the new deal is the evacuation of the kidnapped people in the captivity of the Islam Army militants in Douma, the last rebel-held area in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus.
And the rebel group will evacuate Douma toward the rebel-held city of Jarablus in Aleppo province in northern Syria near the Turkish border.
Negotiations between the Islam Army militants and the Syrian government were renewed on Sunday about the situation in Douma after the militants asked to launch new negotiations with the government after they backed down on a previous deal that technically contained the same details in Douma.
The state TV said the Islam Army rebels, who have been in of Douma since 2012, have asked for negotiating with the Syrian government after two days of a wide-scale military offensive on Douma following the failure of the first agreement.
The Islam Army rebels backed down on the previous agreement with the Russians and the Syrian side for their evacuation from that district as well as rejecting to release thousands of kidnapped people.
The militants also launched mortar attacks on several residential areas inside Damascus.
A day earlier, the Syrian army stormed the frontlines of the Islam Army in Douma from farmlands east of that area amid a state of collapse and chaos among the militant group, according to state news agency SANA.
Douma was supposed to witness a similar destiny as other areas in the Eastern Ghouta, where 43,000 rebels and their families withdrew under a deal with the government toward rebel-held areas in northern Syria.
Three batches of the Islam Army and families withdrew from Douma recently, but as the fourth batch was preparing to leave, the agreement about Douma collapsed.
