Tens of thousands of Syrians fled inter-jihadist fighting in the east as rebels today neared a final deal with the government to withdraw from their last besieged strongholds in battered Homs.
Some 60,000 Syrians have fled since Wednesday from three towns to escape fighting between the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Meanwhile, talks on the rebel withdrawal from Homs -- once dubbed the "capital of the revolution" -- entered their final phase, a day after a ceasefire began in the strategic central city, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting of Syria's civil war.
A rebel pullout would hand Assad complete control of the city and deal a major symbolic blow to the uprising, which began in March 2011 with mass rallies calling for democratic change but escalated into an insurgency when the regime launched a brutal crackdown.
"Talks to rid the city of arms and of armed men... Are ongoing and we are near the end," said provincial governor Talal al-Barazi.
Abul Harith al-Khalidi, the rebel tasked with negotiating the deal, said the talks are being held in tandem with negotiations to free a group of pro-regime Iranian officers held by rebels in the northern city of Aleppo.
"We want to stop this bloodbath," he said.
Only a handful of neighbourhoods surrounding the now destroyed Old City remain in rebel hands, after a series of massive army offensives starting in February 2012.
The vast majority of some 1,500 people still trapped in the Old City are fighters, but the rebel-held Waer neighbourhood is home to hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of them displaced from fallen rebel bastions.
Barazi said the deal "will be applied first in the Old City, then in Waer. The goal is to reach a peaceful solution that brings back security and government institutions."
The impending defeat in Homs came as fighting flared between the two jihadist groups in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, following months of battles pitting Islamist and moderate rebels against ISIL, which is accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing opponents.
