Syria government, rebels work to secure Aleppo evacuation

A Syrian rebel official and a government official said early on Saturday the evacuation of Aleppo would resume and the two Shi’ite villages would be evacuated, as well as the wounded from two towns near the Lebanese border and east Aleppo. But sources said negotiations between pro-government and opposition forces as well as their international backers, were still going on to finalize how the evacuations would take place and how many people would leave. 

The chaos surrounding the evacuation reflects the complexity of Syria’s civil war, with an array of groups and foreign interests involved on all sides. Aleppo had been divided between government and rebel areas in the nearly six-year-long war, but a lightning advance by the Syrian army and its allies began in mid-November following months of intense air strikes, forcing the insurgents out of most of the rebel-held territory within a matter of weeks. 

A senior Syrian rebel official from the powerful Ahrar al Sham group involved in the talks on Saturday said the deal was being held up by Iran and its allied Shi’ite militias which were insisting people be allowed to leave the besieged Shi’ite villages of Kefraya and al-Foua before allowing the Aleppo evacuation to proceed. 

“Iran and its sectarian proxies are using the humanitarian situation of our people in besieged Aleppo and preventing civilians from leaving until the evacuation of their groups in al-Foua and Kefraya,” Munir Sayal, the head of the political wing of the movement, told Reuters.