Dozens of extremists arrived in northern Syria on Tuesday (May 1st) under a deal with the regime for them to leave their enclave in southern Damascus, AFP reported.

The fighters from the Tahrir al-Sham alliance were transferred out of the Yarmouk district late Monday under a deal announced the previous day.

Early Tuesday, the alliance fighters and civilians arrived in the northern province of Aleppo ahead of their transfer to the neighbouring province of Idlib.

In Aleppo's al-Eis area, an AFP correspondent saw masked gunmen step off a bus and fire a volley of gunshots into the air before hugging those who had arrived to greet them.

State news agency SANA said 200 people had left Yarmouk late Monday, but an official from Tahrir al-Sham said the convoy that arrived in al-Eis included just 108 fighters, 17 women and 16 children.

In parallel under the same deal, SANA said dozens of civilians had arrived in al-Eis from various areas in Idlib.

They included five patients and 18 people accompanying them from the besieged areas of Fuaa and Kafraya, along with 42 people from the area of Ishtabraq, where they had been held hostage since 2015.

For over a week, the army has been pressing a military offensive to retake Yarmouk and surrounding areas, where the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) also retains a presence.

On Tuesday, another AFP correspondent saw regime war planes pound Yarmouk, once home to the country's largest Palestinian refugee camp, as the battle against ISIS fighters there continued for a 13th day running.