AP, Beirut :
Syrian state TV says the military and police forces are celebrating recapturing the last neighborhoods in Damascus that were held by the rebels and the Islamic State group.
Al-Ikhbariya TV broadcast footage of a ceremonial police motorcade entering the Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood with sirens blaring on Tuesday, a day after the military declared they had recaptured the neighborhood from IS militants.
The state broadcaster then showed a police ceremony taking place in the neighborhood, much of it left in ruins and rubble from the fighting.
Syria’s military announced it had recaptured Hajar al-Aswad from Islamic State militants on Monday, bringing the entire capital and its suburbs under full government control for the first time since the 2011.
Syria’s army said Monday it was in full control of the capital Damascus and its outskirts after ousting the Islamic State group, marking a major milestone in the seven-year war.
“The Syrian army announces today that Damascus, its outskirts and surrounding towns are completely secure,” it said in a statement carried on official media.
The development came after troops had captured a key southern portion of Damascus from IS, the statement said, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk and the adjacent district of Hajar al-Aswad.
“The wheel of our progress on the battlefield will not stop until all Syrian land is purified,” it added. Syria’s war erupted in 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad, including in the capital.
The following year, the government began losing control of parts of Damascus and placed a crippling siege around Yarmuk, which lies in the capital’s south.
The army’s announcement came hours after a tenuous evacuation deal saw hundreds of IS fighters and their relatives quit Yarmuk, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The government has denied reaching a deal with IS. It said a brief ceasefire had allowed one convoy of women and children to leave the pocket in southern Damascus.
Since last year, Syria’s government has cleared swathes of territory around Damascus from its armed opponents through a blend of military pressure and evacuation deals.
