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AFP
Aleppo
Syrian troops cemented their hold on Aleppo on Friday after retaking full control of the city, as residents anxious to return to their homes moved through its ruined streets.
The army announced on Thursday it had recaptured the former rebel stronghold of east Aleppo following a landmark evacuation deal that saw thousands of opposition fighters and residents bussed out.
Braving the cold, war-weary residents crossed districts that had become infamous front lines, eager to return to neighbourhoods they had not seen in years. An AFP correspondent saw civilians wrapped in coats trekking through the cold, some rolling their belongings on wheelbarrows.
"I came to check on my house, which I haven't seen in five years," resident Khaled al-Masri said."I really hope my home wasn't badly damaged."
The evacuation operation ended more than four years of ferocious fighting inside Aleppo, which had been divided between government forces in the west and rebels in the east.
Opposition forces remain in control of areas west of Aleppo and on Friday at least two civilians were killed in the first wave of rebel rocket fire on the city since it fell under government control, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Seven civilians were also wounded in the fire on the Al Hamdaniyeh district, the Britain-based monitor said, while state news agency SANA reported three killed.
The evacuation agreement was brokered by rebel backer Turkey and regime supporter Russia, which said it would strive to end fighting across Syria."
The liberation of Aleppo from radical elements is a very important part of the normalisation in Syria, and I hope, for the region overall," President Vladimir Putin said.
"Everything needs to be done for fighting to stop on all Syrian territory," Putin said."In any case, we will strive toward this." The Kremlin also announced that Putin had signed an order to expand Russia's naval facility in the Syrian city of Tartus, and that it had dispatched military police to newly acquired territory in Aleppo.
"We sent in a battalion of military police yesterday evening to maintain order in the liberated territories," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin. On Friday morning, government fighters moved into Ansari, Al-Mashhad, and other neighbourhoods they had not entered since mid-2012.
