Evacuations Begin in Damascus Suburb of Al-Taal

The evacuation of Al-Taal city in the northern Damascus suburbs began on Friday, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Buses and ambulances have begun to transfer around 2,000 opposition fighters, their families and the injured to northern Syria. Registration for evacuation began two days earlier. According to Qasioun News Agency, a pro-Syrian opposition media outlet, only 2,000 of the 15,000 who registered have been approved.

Opposition fighters who chose to evacuate the area and head toward the rebel-controlled province of Idlib were allowed to take 500 pieces of military equipment with them, a source on the ground told Qasioun. Any remaining weapons would be given to government forces, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported.

Under the terms of the evacuation agreement, reached last weekend, the Syrian government would not enter the city as long as all weapons were removed during the transfer, according to a Reuters report.

U.S. Coalition Admits to Civilian Casualties in Syria

After investigating 21 reports of civilian casualties, the U.S. Department of Defense found that 54 civilians had been killed by coalition airstrikes in Syria between September 2015 and October 2016.

Of the 21 reports from Iraq and Syria, the investigation found that 12 were “non-credible,” a term that the Pentagon describes as meaning: “At this time there is not sufficient evidence available to determine that, more likely than not, a coalition strike resulted in alleged civilian casualties.”

Seven cases, six of them in Syria, were deemed “credible.” The report claimed that although the strikes “complied with the law of armed conflict … civilian casualties unfortunately occurred.”

The highest number of casualties was reported near the Syrian city of Manbij, where an airstrike killed 24 civilians. The report claimed that the target had been a “known ISIS staging area where no civilians had been seen in the 24 hours prior to the attack.”

The new report brings the total number of civilian casualties to 173 in Syria and Iraq since the coalition began its air campaign against ISIS in June 2014, according to the BBC.

Turkey Calls for Cease-fire in Aleppo

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday that a cease-fire in Aleppo should be agreed on “as soon as possible, immediately,” the Associated Press reported.

Cavusoglu, speaking at a press conference in Beirut with his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil, also reasserted Turkey’s position that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be removed from power.

“We believe that Assad cannot actually enhance the national unity in the country,” he explained. “We have to be realistic. The person who kills almost 600,000 shouldn’t rule any country.”

The statement comes just a day after Cavusoglu met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Turkey to discuss the situation in Aleppo and Syria.

Recommended Reads:

• Human Rights Watch: Russia/Syria: War Crimes in Month of Bombing Aleppo
• The Independent: Why Everything You’ve Read About the Wars in Syria and Iraq Could Be Wrong
• The Wall Street Journal: Islamic State Girds to Defend Remote Syria Outpost
• Los Angeles Times: ‘Bad Things Happen’: How Civilian Deaths Underscore the Limits of the U.S. Air War in Syria
• The Washington Post: In Syria’s Aleppo, there’s no way of counting the dead