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Syrian Rebels Depart Homs District Under Deal Syrian Rebels Depart Homs District Under Deal
(about 11 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The last remaining insurgent fighters in the Old City of Homs in central Syria began evacuating on Wednesday morning, antigovernment activists and state media said, under a deal that would hand the highly symbolic district to the military after two years of blockades and bombardments. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria’s third-largest city, Homs, was one of the first to hold large demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad. Protesters there were among the first to take up arms against the state, and Homs neighborhoods were the first to suffer indiscriminate bombardment by government forces.
The deal, hammered out between security officials and rebel representatives with the participation of Iran’s ambassador to Damascus, was viewed by both sides as a turning point — for government supporters a glimmer of hope for a return to normal life, and for opponents a bitter, if increasingly expected, defeat in what was once called “the capital of the revolution.” Homs long stood as a bellwether for a nation slowly, brutally, unraveling. A diverse community increasingly split along sectarian lines as populations fled, neighborhoods were destroyed and rebels held out in the Old City.
Insurgents in Aleppo Province, to the north, will lift their longstanding blockade of two villages under the terms of the agreement, activists briefed by rebel negotiators said. If the deal holds, it could be the most complex and far-reaching yet struck between combatants in a three-year conflict that has taken more than 150,000 lives. On Wednesday, the last insurgent-held neighborhoods of the Old City appeared to be falling to the government as the last fighters and their families began to evacuate under a deal freighted with symbolism for both sides. The government seeks to prove that through brute force and local talks, it can retake a major urban area. For its opponents, handing over enclaves that withstood a nearly two-year blockade is an emotional blow.
About 2,000 people, mainly fighters and their families, were expected to travel to rebel-held areas in northern Homs Province in bus convoys escorted by United Nations vehicles, spokesmen for the insurgents said. The deal allowed each fighter to take one bag and their individual light weapons, and one rocket-propelled grenade launcher was permitted per bus. But the deal was less than a full victory for the government, or a complete defeat for the rebels. The fighters were allowed to flee with light weapons to a safe haven where they vowed to continue the battle. The deal did little to head off the fragmentation of the country as both sides continue to refuse a broad negotiated settlement to a war that has taken more than 150,000 lives.
Bulldozers cleared rubble and barricades to allow convoys into and out of the Old City. Fighters, some with backpacks, others covering their faces with kaffiyehs, could be seen boarding buses accompanied by a United Nations car, in a video posted by activists, as men in vests labeled “police” looked on. Even as insurgents fled, their representatives were in Washington pleading for weapons to shoot down government aircraft. And the Syrian government was preparing to reaffirm Mr. Assad’s hold on power by staging an election.
The buses, with their blinds drawn, were trailed by motorcycles and battered cars in another video that showed the arrival of the first two busloads of fighters in Dar al-Kabira, said an activist who gave his name as Abu Shihab. After the fighters, some carrying rifles, moved from the buses to open-backed trucks, one insurgent shouted to a crowd, “May God not forgive the neglectful people who let us down. We lost Homs.” “We are not asking our friends to send their sons to our country, and we are also not asking for a direct intervention, even one from the air,” Ahmad Assi al-Jarba, who leads the Syrian opposition coalition, said in an interview in Washington on Tuesday night.
In a twist that frustrated many government opponents, the cooperation of insurgents in Aleppo, who had none of their own fighters at stake, suggested a level of cross-province coordination that was absent for months as those trapped and starving in Homs begged for assistance. “We are asking for antiaircraft weapons in order to neutralize these planes, which are throwing the barrel bombs on us,” he added, referring to bombs, used by the Syrian Air Force, made from barrels filled with shrapnel and explosives. “And we have plans and guarantees that these weapons will not fall into the wrong hands.”
The government hopes to showcase Homs as proof that it can settle the conflict through local negotiations, obviating the need for international peace talks ahead of elections in June, which President Bashar al-Assad is widely expected to win and opponents call a charade. The country’s tourism minister even predicted “a prosperous tourist season” for the province. The Homs deal, worked out between security officials and rebel representatives in the presence of Iran’s ambassador to Syria, also calls for insurgents in Aleppo Province, to the north, to lift their longstanding blockade of two villages, activists briefed by rebel negotiators said.
Some insurgents wept and kissed the ground as they left; graffiti on a wall read, “When I leave, be sure that I did my best to stay.” If the pact holds, it could be the most complex and far-reaching yet struck between combatants in the conflict. International peace talks have failed. Local cease-fires percolating around the country are shaky and disputed. The government calls them reconciliation but opponents see them as surrender to tactics of starvation and indiscriminate bombing.
“It’s over, but jihad will continue,” one fighter, asking to be identified only by his nom de guerre, Abu Bilal, said in a recent interview as the negotiations neared to a close. The Homs deal offers no comprehensive way forward for a country that has suffered more than three years of fighting, with millions forced from their homes. It does nothing to address government opponents’ underlying political grievances, deepened by the crackdown, or the mass displacement of residents, or the shell shock of a city turned upside down.
Homs was one of the first cities to hold large demonstrations against Mr. Assad’s government in early 2011. Protesters there were among the first to take up arms, and the government first used heavy artillery there, on the Baba Amr neighborhood, in early 2012. The once graceful historic district has been bombarded into grim lacework by the government. Its streets have been mined, and in some places burned, by fleeing fighters. Its last residents are leaving, but for six Christian families, who survived the siege alongside mainly Sunni fighters and civilians, and plan to remain, along with a single Sunni family, said an activist there, Beybars al-Tilawi.
The Old City, a diverse labyrinth of mosques, churches and stone arches overlooked by a medieval citadel, was long controlled by insurgents. In years of intense battle that devastated much of the area, the government retook all but a few neighborhoods, blockading the rest and forcing those inside to subsist on grass and whatever else they could grow. He blamed international powers and insurgent commanders for their inaction, and said he was now dispossessed like Palestinians, but at the hands of “the son of my own country.”
In February, more than 1,500 people, civilians and some fighters, were evacuated under a short-lived truce and a small amount of food was allowed in. Some of those who left are still detained in a government shelter, and hundreds more have been released after required security checks. Some fighters wept and kissed the ground before boarding buses escorted by the United Nations, their belongings crammed into the single bag each was allowed, along with one rifle. About 600 of an estimated 1,900 people had left by day’s end, activists said. Many were Homs natives, leaving wrecked homes, dead friends and graffiti reading, “When I leave, be sure that I did my best to stay.”
Many decamped to Waer, the only insurgent-held area remaining in the city, where an estimated 200,000 people displaced from other areas are crammed. Early reports that the deal would include a cease-fire with Waer did not materialize. One fighter, who asked to be identified only by his nom de guerre, Abu Bilal, declared, “It’s over, but jihad will continue.”
Once the evacuation is complete, the military will clear the area of mines planted by the insurgents, who were to provide the location of the devices, and unexploded ordnance from government bombardment. His voice softened as he spoke of his garden — turnips, cabbage, zucchini, beans and pumpkins, some still too small to eat, planted in soil hauled to a rooftop.
Abu Helmi, an activist in Waer, said that a small number of Christian civilians who remained throughout the blockade planned to stay, but no Sunnis, underscoring the sectarian divides that have reshaped the city. “I will miss many things here,” he said, “not only the plants.”
In recent days, smoke rose over the old city as insurgents burned some buildings and headquarters before their departure, according to a government soldier and an opposition activist. Still, the deal was the broadest and most ambitious yet, and in a sign of its importance to the government, it included the first visible foray by Iran, Mr. Assad’s most crucial ally, into such talks. That added muscle to the government position, a rebel negotiator using the name Abu al-Harith said, adding, “The upper hand and the louder voice is the Iranians’.”
The soldier, reached by phone, said that the insurgents were adhering to the cease-fire and “making no troubles.” He said he and his comrades, while remaining on alert, felt relaxed enough to play cards and drink matte, a popular herbal drink, during their breaks. “Let them be kicked out and let us relax,” he said. “I want to go back to Damascus. I miss my parents.” By Wednesday afternoon, there were signs that the agreement extended beyond Homs. Pro-government websites reported that insurgents had released 15 government soldiers in Aleppo and some of the more than 100 women and children from the minority Alawite sect held hostage in coastal Latakia Province.
Antigovernment activists said they feared the deal would clear the way for a government assault on the last insurgent-held areas in northern Homs Province, the destination of the Old City fighters. Although the power dynamic in Homs was lopsided, with insurgents isolated and hungry, the government was motivated by its desire to showcase Homs as proof that it can settle the conflict locally without the need for international peace talks, and to declare the city safe for elections that are dismissed by opponents as a charade.
“It could be a solution for besieged Homs, but it’s the beginning of the tragedy for the rest of the countryside,” said Samer, an activist in the northern town of Houla. Antigovernment activists said the government was also under pressure from mostly non-Sunni residents of government-held districts hit by car bombs that have killed scores of civilians. Some of those attacks by insurgent groups were directly linked to demands to lift the Old City siege, Human Rights Watch reported. Such tactics undermined popular support for the opposition.
Some fighters elsewhere were enraged by the deal. “Damn their honor,” said Abed, a fighter with the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham in Aleppo province. “We should burn this regime, not sign a deal with them – liar regime,” he said. “When the last holy warrior dies, then we will agree.” But the deal carries political risks for the government. Pro-government militia members and others denounced earlier evacuations that they said benefited fighters who had killed their relatives.
Using sectarian slurs, he said that the people of Nubol and Zahra, the villages where insurgents are to lift their siege, deserved to be “slaughtered” rather than fed because they are members of the Shiite minority, like Mr. Assad’s allies Hezbollah and the leadership of Iran. The state news media on Wednesday spoke of “the evacuation of the gunmen of the Old City,” foregoing the usual broad-brush label of “terrorists” for the armed opposition, perhaps hard pressed to justify allowing men deemed terrorists to escape.
The deal carries political risks for the government as well. Pro-government militia members and other core government supporters were angry about the February evacuations, which they said benefited fighters who had shelled and bombed their districts. The deal is divisive for government opponents, too. In a twist that many found frustrating, the cooperation of insurgents in Aleppo and elsewhere who apparently agreed to free prisoners displayed a coordination among far-flung rebels that was absent for months when those trapped in the Old City begged for help from fighters outside.
State media on Wednesday spoke of “the evacuation of the gunmen of the Old City,” forgoing the usual broad-brush label of “terrorists” for the armed opposition, perhaps because government supporters could find it hard to justify allowing men labeled terrorists to escape. Some fighters elsewhere were enraged by the deal, raising questions about its durability. “We should burn this regime, not sign a deal with them — liar regime,” said Abed, a fighter with the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham in Aleppo Province.
Mustafa Aboud, a local official in a government-held Homs district that was hit last week, not for the first time, by a car bomb, was one of those. He said that the people of Nubol and Zahra, the villages where insurgents are to lift their siege but had not done so by late Wednesday, deserved to be “slaughtered” because they are Shiites, like Mr. Assad’s allies in Iran.
But in a recent interview he said he welcomed the cease-fire and anything that would end the fighting in Homs. In Homs, the blockade kept the number of foreign fighters in the Old City relatively low, making it in some ways a time capsule of the uprising’s early days, though some inside became radicalized. It was the early version that many dispersed Homs natives mourned on Wednesday.
“I’m listening to birds singing,” he said, holding his phone to the air so it could pick up the sound, as well as the absence of gunfire. But rumors of car bombs can still empty the streets in minutes, he said. “I don’t say there’s rain until I see it,” Mr. Aboud said. A government soldier, reached by phone, said that insurgents were holding the cease-fire, “making no troubles.” He said he and his comrades felt relaxed enough to play cards and drink mate, a popular herbal drink. “I want to go back to Damascus,” he said. “I miss my parents.”
In northern Homs, one antigovernment activist, Wael, said his family had cooked the night before for three evacuated fighters, friends he was now hosting – light meals, “until their bodies get used to food.” In northern Homs, antigovernment activists said they feared an attack on them would be next. They were also hosting thin, tired, Old City fighters. One, his host said, was so happy to see tomatoes that he saved a piece, “kissed it, and put it aside,” planning to sleep beside it.
When they arrived, he said, they looked thin and tired, and ate a salad. Mustafa Aboud, a local official in a Homs district hit last week by a car bomb, said he welcomed the evacuation if it ended violence.
“One of them took the tomato, kissed it and put it aside,” he said, saying, “I’ll sleep next to this piece of tomato. I haven’t seen one in a year.” “I’m listening to birds singing,” he said, noting the absence of gunfire. But rumors of car bombs still empty streets in minutes, he said. “I don’t say there’s rain until I see it.”