Aleppo Evacuations 'Suspended, Not Finished': Syria Military Source

The Syrian government suspended the evacuation of the last rebel-held parts of Aleppo on Friday, but a military source denied a Russian statement that the operation was "complete."

The government said it had suspended the evacuations because the rebels had violated an agreement brokered by its ally Moscow and opposition supporter Ankara by taking hostages and weapons out of the city as they left.

The Russian defence ministry said that the operation "to evacuate rebels and members of their families from eastern districts of Aleppo is complete."

"All of the women and children have been moved from the rebel-controlled neighbourhoods," it said.

However, a Syrian military source said there had been a "suspension" of the operations but "they are not finished."

On Friday morning, an AFP correspondent heard gunfire and explosions in Ramussa, the government-held neighbourhood that evacuees had been passing through, and said buses and ambulances waiting to collect residents had left empty.

"The terrorist groups violated the agreement and tried to smuggle heavy weapons and hostages from east Aleppo," state television said.

Robert Mardini, regional head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed that "regretfully, the operation was put on hold".

"We urge the parties to ensure it can be relaunched and proceed in the right conditions," he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said the suspension was a bid to pressure rebels to allow evacuations from two government-held villages under opposition siege.

"Ahrar al-Sham and other rebel groups have prevented buses and ambulances from entering Fuaa and Kafraya, despite pledging to the Turks that they would let the evacuation go ahead," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Abdel Rahman said pro-government fighters were also blocking the route out of the city in a bid to pressure rebels to allow the evacuation of Fuaa and Kafraya.

An AFP correspondent saw a convoy of pickup trucks that had left in the morning retuning to rebel territory inside Aleppo.

The Observatory said that there were more than 800 people in the convoy which had been prevented from leraving the government-held sector of Aleppo by Shiite militiamen demanding evacuations from Fuaa and Kafraya.

The two Shiite-majority villages are in Idlib province, which is mostly controlled by rebel groups, and have been under siege since 2015.

The Syrian government and its ally Iran reportedly blocked initial implementation of the Aleppo evacuation on Wednesday until a deal to allow the injured and sick to leave the villages was agreed.

The delicate operation to evacuate remaining civilians and fighters from east Aleppo began on Thursday afternoon and continued through the night.

The Observatory said around 8,500 people had left the city, going to rebel-held territory in the west of the province.

The army began an operation to recapture all of Aleppo in mid-November, and had overrun more than 90 percent of the former rebel bastion in the east of the city before the evacuations began.