Convoy of Islamic State fighters treks ahead despite air raids by US-led coalition
BEIRUT Dozens of Islamic State group members and their families have crossed into areas controlled by the extremists despite US threats to bomb the convoy days after they left the LebanonSyria border, Syrian opposition activists said on Saturday.
The opposition activists’ announcement came after the US-led coalition fighting IS said the 17-bus convoy of IS militants and their families that left the Lebanon-Syria border six days ago is still stranded in the Syrian desert. More than 300 militants and their families are in the convoy after vacating the border area as part of a Hezbollah-negotiated deal to transport them to an IS-held town in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border.
Hezbollah said in a statement on Saturday that warplanes of the US-led coalition are still preventing the convoy from moving east and barring anyone on the government side from reaching them, warning that the wounded and elderly people could die.
Hezbollah said that six buses are still in areas controlled by the Syrian government and warned that if they are hit civilians will be killed. It added that if aid does not reach the convoy because of the aerial imposed siege, “only the Americans will bear the responsibility” for what happens.
“The so-called international community and international institutions should intervene to prevent the occurrence of an ugly massacre,” it said.
The US-led coalition said on Friday it had sought an unspecified solution that would save the women and children in the convoy from further suffering.
Earlier this week, an airstrike by the coalition created a crater in a road that the buses had intended to take and destroyed a small bridge to prevent the convoy from going further east.