Syria strikes kill 25 as another Damascus suburb surrenders

BEIRUT -- Syria's government secured a deal to restore its authority over another rebellious Damascus suburb Thursday, while Syrian rebels captured new ground in a lightning advance on the central city of Hama and suspected government airstrikes killed 25 civilians in the surrounding province.

The Syrian capital's western suburb of Moadamiyeh, which a U.N. report said was gassed with toxic sarin in 2013, has suffered a three-year government siege that left its estimated 28,000 residents with dwindling food and medical supplies.

On Thursday, Moadamiyeh's residents agreed to let President Bashar Assad's government restore its security presence and political institutions in the suburb, according to Hassan Ghadour, a resident and leading negotiator of the deal.

Ghadour said 200 gunmen who did not wish to give up their arms would be allowed safe passage to rebel-held areas in Syria's northwestern Idlib and Aleppo provinces. The implementation to the agreement is expected to begin today.

A local activist in the suburb, Dani Qappani, said the residents had no desire to negotiate with Assad's government, but their "circumstances grew too difficult."

The development came as an uneasy truce continued to hold Thursday between Turkish troops and Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria, despite Ankara's vow it never would negotiate with what it calls a "terror organization."

The United States has called on both sides to stop fighting each other after Turkey's incursion into the area last week and instead focus on defeating the Islamic State group.

Elsewhere in Syria on Thursday, at least 25 civilians, including six children, were killed in suspected government airstrikes on Hama province as rebels made new gains there, activists said.

The Hama-based Syrian Press Center, an activist group operated by Ahmed al-Ahmed, said at least 10 people were killed when warplanes struck a crowd of people displaced from Suran, a town north of the city of Hama, which was seized by opposition fighters.

Another 15 people were killed farther to the west, the center said.

The rebel offensive is led by an ultraconservative Islamic group, Jund al-Aqsa, and several factions from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.

In the past three days, the insurgents have pushed their way from the north of the province, where they usually are based, south toward government-held areas.

Al-Ahmed said the rebels were only 5 miles away from the provincial capital, Hama.

They have taken over a government military base and control several towns along the highway linking Hama to Damascus, following a "surprising" government retreat, he said.

The advances in Hama are significant because if rebels control the city and the highway, they can sever government supply lines and deprive Assad of a traditional stronghold.

Fighting is concentrated around a hill outside the city of Hama, al-Ahmed added.