Syrian government loses control of southern city of Daraa: Monitor

The Syrian government lost control Friday of the symbolic southern city of Daraa and most of the eponymous province, which was the cradle of the country’s 2011 uprising, a war monitor said.

“Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city… They now control more than 90 percent of the province, as Syrian army successively pulled out,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In Daraa province, only the Sanamayn area is still in government hands, Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the British-based monitor with a network of sources in Syria, told AFP.

Earlier Friday, local factions seized the Nassib-Jaber border crossing with Jordan, the Observatory said, with Jordan closing its side of the crossing, Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya said.

Daraa province was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, but it returned to government control in 2018 under a ceasefire deal brokered by al-Assad ally Russia. It was a anti-government bastion at the height of the civil war in the early 2010s.

Former opposition fighters there who accepted the 2018 deal were able to keep their light weapons.

Daraa province has been plagued by unrest in recent years, with frequent attacks, armed clashes and assassinations, some claimed by ISIS.