Eight south Syria towns return to regime control under deals: monitor

At least eight battered rebel-held towns in southern Syria today returned to regime control under Russian-brokered deals after nearly two weeks of bombardment, a Britain-based monitor said.

Since June 19, the Damascus regime has pressed a deadly bombardment campaign in southern Syria in a bid to retake the strategic area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The agreements for the eight towns in the southern province of Daraa were reached even as regime air strikes pounded other opposition holdouts nearby, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

"At least eight towns in the northern and eastern Daraa countryside agreed to 'reconciliation' deals after talks in each town between Russian generals as well as local notables and remaining rebels," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The deals are the latest in a string of such "reconciliation" agreements across the country that have seen the government retake opposition-held areas, often after deadly air and ground offensives.

These deals imposed by the regime often see opposition fighters hand over their heavy weapons and allow those who wish to board buses headed to rebel-held areas in the north of Syria.

State news agency SANA confirmed the deals for the four towns of Dael, Eastern Ghariya, Talul Khlaaf and Tal al-Sheikh Hussein.

They had come under regime control "after fighters handed over their weapons to the army in preparation for settling their status" with the regime, SANA said.

State television broadcast live images from Dael of residents holding up posters of President Bashar al-Assad in front of the camera, and chanting slogans in support of the army.

With the "reconciliation" deals in Daraa, the regime has further chipped away at a U-shaped patch of territory controlled by the rebels in southern Syria.

The Observatory said the towns to return to government control also included Ibtaa, Western Ghariya, Um Walad and Eastern Karak.

In the last town, a community leader was killed along with five members of his family on Friday in obscure circumstances likely linked to the "reconciliation" talks, the monitor's Abdel Rahman said.

Regime and Russian strikes on other parts of Daraa today killed at least five civilians, the Observatory said.

That brought the total number of civilians killed in regime bombardment on the province to 105 non-combatants including 19 children since June 19.

In that same period, 96 pro-regime fighters and at least 59 rebels have lost their lives.

More than 350,000 people have been killed in Syria since the country's war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.