Syrian forces widen south west offensive, some rebels leave for north

AMMAN / BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces widened their offensive in the country's southwest on Sunday to Quneitra province, a region adjoining the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a war and rebel sources said.

Government forces, backed by the Russian military, have captured most of the southwest Deraa province in the offensive that began in June.

Rebels still hold a strip straddling Deraa and Quneitra provinces which adjoins the occupied Golan Heights. Islamic State-affiliated militants also occupy a pocket on the Jordanian border.

At the same time, a few hundred Syrian rebel fighters and their families were prepared to leave Deraa city, the birthplace of revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, to be taken over by the opposition surrender deal agreed last week.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Rebels said jets, which they believed to be Russian, bombed an opposition-held village in Quneitra province in the first such aerial strike in around a year.

The Observatory said the forces of the village of Mashara, about 11 km (7 miles) from the Golan frontier, after heavy shelling, and were trying to capture the land of the village with shelling and air strikes.

Lebanese TV station al-Mayadeen, which is close to Damascus, said the Syrian army was advancing towards that elevated Tel Mashara area.

The violence is taking place around the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force zone, an area monitored by the United States force since 1974 in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War.

A rebel official in Quneitra denied Syrian forces had taken the village and said fighting continued.

"Over 28 (air) strikes struck Mashara and intense artillery and missile bombing," Suhaib al-Ruhail said.

Government forces also shelled the rebel-held town of al-Haara in neighboring Deraa province, the Observatory said.

REBEL TRANSFERS

Deraa city was the scene of the first major peaceful protests against Assad's authoritarian rule in March 2011 which hailed a million people.

The fighters are leaving the Deraa al-Balad. Under the deal rebels would not be allowed to go out.

A rebel official, Abu Shaima, said at least 500 fighters were going to get on around 15 buses and that was already on the road north to opposition-held Idlib province.

A live broadcast on a Syrian state television reporter showed signs on what he said to be the outsiders of Deraa city, accompanied by a Russian military police and Syrian Arab Red Crescent vehicles.

Abu Bayan, a rebel commander, said most rebels in Deraa, in the hope of being detained in the future Syrian authorities.

Fighter Abdullah Masalmah, who said: "I can not forget those who have been killed by the diet, or let alone the orphans, wounded and the detainees. I do not trust the Russians or the regime. "

Syrian state news agency SANA said on Sunday that they had been handing over their heavy weapons to the Syrian army, showing images of heavy armor and heavy weapons. .

AID

A major humanitarian aid operation in government-held areas of southwest Africa, this week, after the United States on Monday said the government had asked it to begin deliveries.

The offensive had displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Sixteen trucks carrying 3,000 food parcels reached the towns of Nassib and Um al-Mayathen in Deraa province near a border crossing with Jordan on Sunday, a Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) statement said.

Deraa earlier in the week, SARC said.

Sunday's convoy was accompanied by a delegation containing the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Syria Ali al-Zaatari and representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"We continue to deliver humanitarian assistance and we will be doubling our efforts on the basis of people's needs. Water, health and education are urgently responding to, "al-Za'tari said.