Syria says capital is free of militants after defeat of IS
Syria's military said Monday it has retaken the last neighborhoods in southern Damascus held by the Islamic State group and declared the Syrian capital and its surroundings "completely safe" from militants for the first time in nearly seven years.
Reading an army statement on Syrian TV, Gen. Ali Mayhoub said the army captured the former IS strongholds in the Palestinian Yarmouk camp and Hajar al-Aswad after a monthlong campaign. He said the army operations were "concentrated and successive," leading to the extremists' defeat in the city.
The gains by President Bashar Assad's troops bring greater Damascus—including the capital's far-flung suburbs—fully under government control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011.
