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What are the real goals behind local truces in Syria?

Opposition activists say the truces reached in several Syrian regions are a regime tool to rearrange the country's demographics.

Buses leave district of Waer during a truce between the government and rebels, in Homs, Syria December 9, 2015. Scores of people left the last area held by insurgents in the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday under a local truce between the government and rebels, a monitoring group said, a rare agreement in Syria's nearly five-year conflict. Three buses carrying people had left the previously besieged district of Waer, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. About 750 people were expected to leave durin
Buses leave the district of al-Waer during a truce between the government and rebels, in Homs, Syria, Dec. 9, 2015. — REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

DAMASCUS, Syria — Several successful cease-fire truces have been reached in different parts of Syria between the Ministry of National Reconciliation on the one hand and UN delegations and native dignitaries on the other. The regime calls these truces “national reconciliations,” but many observers wonder if perhaps the agreements just stem from the regime’s desire to herd opposition brigades into Idlib in northwestern Syria.

Under one of the latest truces, in Homs, the opposition battalions’ militants took their light weapons on Dec. 8 and left al-Waer neighborhood for the countryside of Idlib in the north after a five-month siege on the city.

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