Buses arrive to evacuate two besieged pro-Assad Syrian villages

Dozens of buses reached two Syrian regime loyalist villages under siege from insurgents in the northwest, as part of a deal to evacuate residents on Wednesday, regime media said.

Some 6,000 people will leave, emptying out the mostly Shia villages of Fuaa and Kafraya in the Idlib countryside, a commander in the regional alliance that backs regime's Bashar al Assad said.

The opposition and Iran-backed forces agreed on a deal to evacuate the villages in return for the release of hundreds of detainees in regime prisons, sources said on Tuesday.

Opposition sources said Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a coalition spearheaded by Syria's former al Qaeda offshoot, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards had negotiated the deal.

TRT World's Sara Firth has more.

"Buses and ambulances enter the villages of Fuaa and Kafraya to bring out the besieged people," regime news agency SANA said.

In April last year, thousands of people in the two villages were shuttled out to regime territory in a swap deal.

In return, hundreds of residents left two towns at the border with Lebanon which were in the hands of Sunni rebels and opposition forces at the time and besieged by pro-regime forces.

They were evacuated to insurgent territory in northern Syria. 

Air strikes kill 15 civilians in south Syria: monitor

Unidentified air strikes have killed 15 civilians in an opposition and rebel-held pocket of southern Syria as regime ally Russia presses talks for Damascus to retake the area, a monitor said Wednesday.

The deadly strikes late Tuesday hit Nawa, the last town under opposition and rebel control in the southern province of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Updating an earlier toll, the Britain-based monitor said 15 civilians had been killed in the strikes, nearly half of them women.

The Observatory said it could not determine whether the strikes on the town in the west of the province were carried out by the regime or its Russian ally.

The regime has in less than a month retaken more than 90 percent of Daraa province, which borders Jordan and was the cradle of Syria's ill-fated 2011 uprising.

But opposition fighters in Nawa, where tens of thousands of people live, have resisted.

After regime forces launched a ferocious offensive on June 19, Russia pressured the opposition and rebels to hand over eastern parts of the province in early July, and the provincial capital last week. 

Other towns in the west of the province have also joined the deal.

"Negotiations were ongoing Wednesday towards Nawa joining the reconciliation deal" with the regime for the wider province, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Ceasefire sans Daesh 

A ceasefire deal announced earlier this month between the regime and the opposition in Daraa province did not include Daesh.

On Wednesday, Russian air strikes and regime barrel bombs targeted hills outside Nawa held by the Hayat Tahrir al Sham group, led by Syria's former Al Qaeda affiliate.

Heavy air strikes also pounded a southwestern corner of the province controlled by Daesh.

After retaking most of Daraa, regime forces on Sunday opened a new front in the neighbouring province of Quneitra, adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Earlier on Tuesday, 15 civilians were killed in other strikes in both provinces, including 14 in Ain al Tina village on the administrative border with Quneitra.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 350,000 people since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests.

The Observatory relies on sources inside Syria for its information, and says it determines who carried out strikes based on aircraft and munitions used, locations and flight patterns.