Hundreds of gunmen evacuate south Damascus district: reportMarch 14, 2018 - 12:29 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Several hundred gunmen and at least one thousand of their family members have been evacuated from the district of Al-Qadam in southern Damascus, Al-Masdar News says citing reports from semi-official Russian sources. Some 300 armed gunmen and ‘more than 1,000’ relatives left the south Damascus suburb for the town of Qalaat al-Mudiq in northwestern Hama province, TASS says. Qalaat al-Mudiq (for many years an unbreachable rebel stronghold) fully reconciled with the Syrian government less than one week ago following a breakthrough in Russian-mediated inter-faction talks. The voluntary withdrawal of insurgent fighters from Al-Qadam was part of a deal struck as early as September 2017, but since took six months to realize. Islamic State forces reacted with an offensive on the district amid the withdrawal of rival militants but were rebuffed by the Syrian army who which assumed control of 70 percent of it following a day of heavy clashes. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. |