Surrender or face attack

Pressure was mounting yesterday for rebels to accept a negotiated withdrawal from their final holdout in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, as hundreds boarded buses to leave another part of the battered enclave.

Thousands of opposition fighters and civilians have agreed to quit the former rebel bastion of Ghouta, target of a five-week-long assault by the regime.

Syrian troops have recaptured more than 90 percent of Ghouta, and are draining the last opposition pockets with negotiated pull-outs mediated by Russia.

Moscow has secured two such deals already and has been pressing Jaish al-Islam, the rebel faction in control of the third and final pocket of the enclave near Damascus, to leave too.

The group holds Ghouta's largest town of Douma, whose population has swelled to an estimated 200,000 with people displaced from other devastated districts.

Jaish al-Islam had hoped to reach a settlement that would avoid their evacuation, but they were now facing the spectre of a renewed blitz on Douma.

Syrian troops were clustering around the town for a second day on Wednesday, Syria's Al-Watan daily reported.

Negotiations faltered over the group's demands that Syria's regime grant them a general amnesty and allow Douma's residents to move freely across the country, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.

"At the end of their meeting Monday, the Russians gave Jaish al-Islam two choices: surrender or face an attack," another source close to the talks said.

Anticipating further bombardment, hundreds of civilians fled Douma into government territory via a humanitarian corridor yesterday, state media reported.

More than 128,000 people havefled Ghouta in recent weeks, many of them through routes into government-held territory that were opened by advancing army troops.