The Syrian government appeared close to ending rebel resistance in eastern Ghouta as civilians streamed from one of its besieged, bomb-battered towns and insurgents prepared to surrender another on March 22.
The army assault on eastern Ghouta, an area of towns and farmland just outside Damascus, has been one of the most intense in Syria’s seven-year-old war, killing more than 1,500 people in a relentless bombardment with warplanes, shells and rockets.
