BEIRUT -- Hundreds of rebel fighters and civilians, including small children swaddled in thick blankets, were bused out of war-ravaged Aleppo in heavy snow on Wednesday as the Syrian government evacuation of former rebel strongholds entered its final phase.
The departures from Aleppo pave the way for President Bashar Assad to assume full control there, after more than four years of fighting over Syria's largest city. It marks the most significant victory for Assad since an uprising against his family's four-decade rule swept the country in 2011.
The evacuation was set in motion last week after Syria's opposition agreed to surrender its last footholds in eastern Aleppo. Since then, about 25,000 fighters and civilians have been bused out, according to the United Nations. On Wednesday, buses began evacuating the last rebels and civilians, an estimated 3,000 people.
By nightfall, 25 buses, traveling through a rare snowstorm, had carried hundreds of people from eastern Aleppo to opposition-held areas in the countryside near the city, said opposition activist Ahmad Primo, who was monitoring arrivals at the main drop-off point in the Rashideen district.
[TIMELIME: Key events in Aleppo since the start of Syria’s uprising ]
The evacuees got off the buses wearing thick jackets and carrying sacks with belongings. One woman dressed in a black robe and face veil carried a small child swaddled in a heavy yellow blanket.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday evening that with the evacuation of the last group of rebels from eastern Aleppo, Assad was in control of the city, save for a few positions on the western outskirts that were still in rebel hands.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said patients and all those requiring medical care had been evacuated from the last hospital in the city's east.
Pro-government forces repeatedly struck medical facilities in rebel-held neighborhoods in their push to expel the opposition from Aleppo. In November, the U.N. said it believed there were no more functioning medical facilities in the eastern part of the city.
Wednesday's departures came after evacuations had been suspended for 24 hours, one of several snags and delays since the first bus convoys left the city last week.
Frequent disagreements have broken out between the rebels and the government, as well as among rebel groups, over compliance with a wider deal that includes evacuations from two rebel-besieged villages, Foua and Kfarya.
The Red Cross said about 750 people had been bused out of the villages, leaving hundreds more to be evacuated.
It was unclear whether any U.N. observers were on the ground in eastern Aleppo on Wednesday -- two days after a U.N. Security Council resolution approved their urgent deployment.
Deputy U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said some U.N. workers were present at a Syrian government checkpoint outside Aleppo's eastern sector, but he couldn't say for sure whether any observers had been let into the onetime rebel-held area.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, fighting intensified in the Islamic State-controlled town of al-Bab, where Turkish troops and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters have been trying to drive the extremists out.
Turkey's state television said 10 Turkish soldiers were killed Wednesday in three suicide attacks in al-Bab.
The report by TRT television came hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Islamic State was fighting "for dear life" in al-Bab, carrying out suicide bombings and attacks with improvised explosive devices.
At the U.N., the Security Council approved the delivery of humanitarian aid across borders and conflict lines in Syria for another year, in a resolution aimed at reaching thousands in need in rebel-held areas.
The resolution, adopted unanimously, noted "the continued deterioration of the devastating humanitarian situation in Syria," where more than 13.5 million people require urgent assistance.
Also at the U.N., the General Assembly voted to establish an investigative body that will assist in documenting and prosecuting the most serious violations of international law in Syria, including possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The 193-member world body adopted the resolution over objections from Syria and Russia, which accused the assembly of interfering in the work of the Security Council.
A U.N. board of inquiry said it had received reports that an attack on an aid convoy on the outskirts of Aleppo in September, which killed 10 people and injured 22, was "highly likely" carried out by the Syrian air force, but that it was unable to reach a definitive conclusion.
Information for this article was contributed by Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/22/2016