Alalam - Syria

The London Based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 2,000 rebels and family members were picked up by about 40 buses.

Syrian state television put the number at nearly 1,000 including terrorists and their family members.

Those leaving will travel to northern Syria, local sources and the Observatory said.

It was the latest in a number of such evacuations as the army and its allies consolidate their control over the outskirts of the capital.

While the fiercest recent battles in Syria's civil war have taken place in the northern city of Aleppo, the government and allied forces have also been steadily advancing in the area around Damascus.

Local sources had estimated that there were about 1,500 rebels in Al-Tal, about a third of them from the hardline "Islamist group" Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, formerly the Nusra Front.

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