BEIRUT, April 20, 2018 (News Wires) - Insurgents in the last area outside the Syrian government's control near Damascus agreed to surrender on Friday, state media said, after a pounding bombardment overnight and through the morning. A source familiar with negotiations between the insurgent groups there and the government told Reuters that some fighters from the enclave around Yarmouk refugee camp would be taken to eastern Syria, where the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group controls some territory and others to rebel areas in the northwest. The reported move comes as President Bashar al-Assad accelerates his push to retake remaining enclaves and strengthen his position around the capital following the defeat of rebels in eastern Ghouta this month. Earlier on state television, large puffs of smoke could be seen along a row of buildings as an artillery salvo struck home before one collapsed in a cloud of dust, accompanied by the rattle of automatic fire and the sound of distant blasts. US, British and French air strikes last Saturday to punish Assad for suspected use of chemical weapons have done nothing to slow the advance of his forces, now in their strongest position since the early months of the seven-year-old war. Air strikes and shelling hit the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad area, part of a small enclave divided between warring jihadists and other rebels south of the capital. The live state television footage of the area showed a plume of dark smoke billowing across one district as guns boom in the distance. Witnesses in central Damascus said they saw air strikes also hitting the area. Assad is accelerating his campaign to retake the remaining enclaves his forces encircle around Syria, which would leave rebels with only their two major strongholds in the northwest and southwest. International inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) who arrived in Damascus nearly a week ago were still waiting yesterday to visit the site of the suspected poison gas attack. Syria and its ally Russia deny using chemical weapons in the assault on Douma. The Western countries say the Syrian government, which now controls the town, is keeping the inspectors out and may be tampering with evidence, both accusations Damascus and Moscow deny. Physicians for Human Rights, a US-based rights group, voiced "grave concern" over reports that Douma hospital staff had faced "extreme intimidation" after the area came back under government control to stop them talking about the incident.
