Mountainous region near Damascus targeted with days of airstrikes and shelling despite nationwide ceasefire.

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Army and militia units supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, advanced further on Monday on a rebel region that is key to the capital’s water supply, launching strikes and artillery fire threatening a fragile nationwide truce.

Hundreds of civilians have fled the Barada valley region outside Damascus since Saturday, where government forces were battling several insurgent groups.



The region has been the target of days of airstrikes and shelling despite the recent nationwide ceasefire, which was brokered by Russia and Turkey and appears to be holding in other parts of the country, despite some reports of fighting.

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The truce went into effect early on Friday, and the government and the opposition are expected to meet for talks in Kazakhstan later this month. Russia, a key military ally of Assad, and Turkey, a leading sponsor of the rebels, are acting as guarantors of the agreement, which excludes the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front and Islamic State.

The military said those fleeing Barada valley were relocated to safer areas and their names were registered by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the opposition’s Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said there were buses in the region ready to evacuate civilians but could not confirm how many people had left. Reports suggested more than a thousand had left in the last three days.



He said the Barada valley region was not part of the ceasefire because of the presence of Fatah al-Sham Front, formerly known as the Nusra Front, and government forces and allied fighters were engaged in fierce clashes with rebels.

“Regime forces and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group are advancing in the region and are now on the outskirts of Ain al-Fijeh, the primary water source in the area,” he said.

Civil society organisations on the ground in the Barada valley region however denied in a joint statement issued on Monday that Nusra fighters were present in the area.

Rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner in the Barada Valley region also warned in a statement that the truce was in danger of collapse.



“We call on the sponsors of the ceasefire agreement to assume their responsibility and pressure the regime and its allied militias to stop their clear violation of the agreement,” the statement said.

Otherwise, they warned, “we will call on all the free military factions operating inside Syria to overturn the agreement and ignite the fronts in defence of the people of Wadi Barada”.

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The Barada valley is the primary source of water for the capital and its surrounding region. The government assault has coincided with a severe water shortage in Damascus since 22 December. The government says rebels spoiled the water source with diesel fuel, forcing it to cut supplies to the capital.