The Syrian government has been securing several deals lately under their amnesty offer to get rebels out of metro Damascus, and secured another territory today, as some 1,800 people, including 700 rebel fighters, left the suburb of Mouadamiyah.
Under the deal, the rebels and their families were allowed safe passage out of the suburb, and will be allowed to move northward into the Idlib Province, which is held by the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. A lot of rebels have moved up into Idlib as part of this deal.
The relocation of rebels out of metro Damascus allows the government to have more secure control over the capital city, while the rebels in those suburbs have been virtually trapped and unable to act at any rate, and aren’t losing much in shifting northward.
One danger, however, is that shifting everyone into the Nusra Front’s territory could give the Islamist faction a huge boost in recruitment of experienced fighters, at a time when the group is already one of the main focuses of the government’s ongoing offensives.