BEIRUT, Apr 21 (Reuters): Syrian rebels began withdrawing from an enclave northeast of Damascus on Saturday and will go to northern Syria, state TV and a rebel official said, in a surrender agreement that marks another victory for President Bashar al-Assad.
The withdrawal will restore state control over the eastern Qalamoun enclave, some 40 km (25 miles) from Damascus.
Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, is seeking to wipe out the last few rebel enclaves near Damascus, building on momentum from the defeat of the insurgency in eastern Ghouta, which was the last major opposition stronghold near the capital.
State TV said rebel fighters and their families would be transported from eastern Qalamoun to Idlib and Jarablus, a rebel-held territory at the border with Turkey, with 3,200 militants and their families expected to leave on Saturday.
The spokesman for one of the rebel groups in eastern Qalamoun said the insurgents had agreed to the deal after intensified Russian shelling killed six people in areas near the town of al-Ruhaiba earlier this week.
"This made the Free (Syrian) Army factions sit at the negotiating table with the Russian side and an agreement was reached the most important articles of which are the surrender of heavy weapons and the departure of fighters to the north," Said Seif of the Ahmad Abdo Martyr brigade said.
A first convoy of 10 buses had left Ruhaiba and was being searched in a nearby area before continuing to the north.
Meanwhile, the Syrian military and its allies pressed the bombardment of a besieged enclave south of Damascus.
State TV footage showed clouds of smoke rising from the al-Hajar al-Aswad district, part of an enclave including the Palestinian Yarmouk camp that is held by Islamic State and other jihadist groups.
A commander in the regional military alliance that fights in support of Assad said jihadist positions were being targeted with all types of weapons. "Daesh positions are being targeted by Syrian army helicopters," the commander added, using an acronym for Islamic State.
UNRWA, the UN agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, has said it is deeply concerned about the fate of civilians including some 12,000 Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk and the surrounding areas.
"Displacement continues with people moving to the neighboring area of Yalda ... to escape the fighting. Some families are staying in Yarmouk, either because they cannot move due to the intensity of fighting or because they choose to remain," UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said.
"We don't have any numbers on how many people have moved but the humanitarian situation of those in both Yarmouk and Yalda is intolerable."
Meanwhile, The UN Security Council met in a secluded farmhouse on the southern tip of Sweden on Saturday in a bid to overcome deep divisions over how to end the war in Syria.
In a first for the Security Council, which normally holds its annual brainstorming session in upstate New York, the 15 ambassadors and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were this year invited to hold an informal meeting in Backakra by Sweden, a non-permanent member of the body.
The United Nations' special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is expected on Sunday.
"We still face a very serious divide on that (Syria) matter," Guterres said as he arrived along with the ambassadors.
"We really need to find a way in relation to the violation of international law that the use of chemical weapons represents," he added.
The farmhouse is the summer residence of Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations' second secretary-general who died in a plane crash in Africa in 1961.
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