DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Syrian army troops have been deployed across the rubble-strewn streets of another town in the country’s southwestern province of Dara’a to look for unexploded ordnance and booby traps left by foreign-backed terrorists for the safe return of civilians.
Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that army units started mine clearance operations in the town of Jasim and nearby neighborhoods on Thursday morning, and defused a number of explosives to make sure there are no sleeper cells before the return of civilians.
Earlier, dozens of terrorists in another town of Dara’a province handed over their weapons to the Syrian army.
SANA said armed men in the city of al-Sanamayn, located 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of Dara’a, started surrendering their medium and heavy weapons to government forces on Thursday.
Last month, Syrian army units entered Dara’a al-Balad neighborhood and raised Syria’s national flag there.
Under a truce deal brokered by Russia and reached on August 14, militants were obliged to hand over their weapons, and government forces were due to install checkpoints in nine districts of Dara’a al-Balad.
A joint Russo-Syrian body responsible for facilitating the return of the Syrian refugees identifies the United States and its allies’ illegal presence in Syria as the main obstacle in the way of restoration of normal life in the Arab county.
The Syrian and Russian Coordination Committees for Returning Displaced Syrians made the remarks in a statement on Sunday, the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
The statement indicated that “the illegal presence of U.S. and its allies in Syria is the basic obstacle to returning to normal life in the country,” the agency cited the body as saying.
The allies, it added, were coming in the way of all rehabilitative efforts aimed at resumption of the normal situation through their “plundering the natural resources in the country and igniting tension in the region,” the statement added.
The U.S. invaded Syria at the head of a coalition amassing scores of its allies in 2014.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad said major gains made by government forces in battles against foreign-sponsored terrorist groups have resulted in positive international overtures to his country.
“The achievements of Damascus in the war on terrorism changed the international political atmosphere towards the Syrian nation. The change in international positions towards Damascus is the result of sacrifices made by Syrian people to preserve their national sovereignty, might and unity of their homeland,” Mikdad said in an exclusive interview with state-run Syria TV and al-Ikhbariyah Syria television stations on Thursday night.
He added that the main purpose of the ongoing aggression on Syria is to change political realities on the ground; but the Damascus government has well managed to foil such plot.
Mikdad underscored that the Damascus government will not abandon even one iota of Syrian territory, and that U.S. and Turkish occupation forces must withdraw.