About 350 Syrian pro-government militia fighters and civilians from two besieged Shi'ite towns in northwestern Syria boarded buses and ambulances bound for the Turkish border under a UN-brokered deal among warring parties, aid workers said.

They were then set to board planes from the Turkish city of Hatay and fly to Beirut.

The convoy of evacuees from Kefraya and al Foua was waiting for clearance to drive 25 km to the Bab al Hawa border crossing, the aid workers said.

At the same time, more than 120 insurgent fighters from the rebel-besieged border town of Zabadani near Lebanon were due to head for Beirut and then fly to Turkey, they said.

Relief workers and rebel fighters helped carry several young men in wheelchairs onto ambulances in a square in Zabadani, one witness told Reuters.

Much of the town was devastated in a major offensive launched in July against the insurgents by the Syrian army and its allies from the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah.

The United Nations and foreign governments have tried to broker local ceasefires and safe-passage agreements as steps towards the wider goal of ending Syria's near five-year civil war.

Iran, which backs the government, and Turkey, which backs the rebels, helped organise local ceasefires in Zabadani and the two villages in Idlib in September in the first phase of the deal overseen by International Committee of the Red Cross.

The mostly Sunni Muslim rebel fighters going to Turkey would then be able to go back to rebel-held areas in Syria through the northern Turkish border or stay for treatment, according to rebel sources close to the negotiations.

The Shi'ite Syrians are holed up in an areas mostly under Sunni rebel control and would be able to get to Lebanon where Hezbollah would be able to watch over them, added the sources.

They are then expected to go back to other parts Syria, Syrian Minister of National Reconciliation Ali Haider said on Hezbollah's Manar TV station on Monday. - Reuters