Syrian forces advance into village in Wadi Barada area

The Syrian army has retaken a village in the strategic Wadi Barada area in the countryside of Damascus, which hosts water supplies to the capital and its surroundings.

According to Press TV, on Thursday, the troops advanced into the village of Bassimeh in the area, where Barada, Damascus’ main river, as well as a spring supplying the capital’s general area with water, is located.

Takfiri terrorists have been fighting government forces in the area since late December, 2016, damaging the water processing facilities there and reducing water flow to some five million people in the city.

Also on Thursday, as many as 500 civilians and terrorists evacuated the area as part of a reconciliation agreement between the armed groups and the government.

Meanwhile, United Nations envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said five villages in Wadi Barada had reached agreements with the government to stop hostilities.

Damascus is pushing for more such deals in order to secure civilian lives there, and send in engineers to repair the facilities.

In recent months, hundreds of terrorists have laid down weapons and surrendered to the Syrian army under such reconciliation agreements.

The Syrian government says Takfiri terrorists in Wadi Barada, including those from the Fateh al-Sham terror group, are deliberately cutting water supplies to the capital and its surroundings.

Late last year, the army managed to liberate the eastern sector of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, which had fallen to Takfiri groups back in 2012.

By doing so, the Syrian forces both restored the entirety of the city to government control and dealt the hardest blow to the terrorists since the onset of their campaign of foreign-fueled violence in Syria in 2011.

ME