After deal, IS allowed to leave Syria-Lebanon border area

Islamic State militants and their families began leaving a border area between Lebanon and Syria yesterday as part of a negotiated deal to end the group’s presence there, Lebanese and Syrian media reported. An unidentified number of militants and their families headed in buses toward a town held by the extremist group in far eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq. The transfer comes nearly a week after Lebanon launched a military campaign to drive IS from the rugged mountainous area along its border with Syria.

The Syrian army and the Lebanese Hezbollah group have been waging their own separate but simultaneous offensive to pressure IS on the Syrian side of the border. Hezbollah has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria since 2013. Nearly two dozen buses and 11 ambulances carried the militants and their families from the area straddling the SyriaLebanon border toward the IS-held town of Boukamal in eastern Syria. Syrian Al-Ikhbariya TV reported that there were about 250 militants in the transfer.

The Central Military Center, a media outlet run by Hezbollah, said ambulances ferried 25 IS wounded fighters from the area. The Lebanese military yesterday took journalists on a tour of areas along the border near Ras Baalbek that were recaptured from IS in the past week. Soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles were heavily deployed along the border area, and caves used by IS bore signs of damage from the recent fighting. About 5,000 Lebanese soldiers took part in the offensive. A senior Lebanese military official said a number of militants were also leaving from the Lebanese side of the border, to be transferred with the Syrian convoy.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not part of the negotiations, did not have a number for militants leaving Lebanon. The transfer of the militants is part of a deal that came into effect following negotiations, led by Hezbollah, to determine the fate of nine Lebanese soldiers who were kidnapped in 2014. On Sunday, the Lebanese army, on one side, and Hezbollah and the Syrian army on another, declared separate but simultaneous cease-fires. Shortly afterward, the remains of eight soldiers were located and exhumed in an area near the border with Syria.

The fate of one soldier remains unclear. The bodies of five Hezbollah fighters killed in fighting the militants were also handed over, allowing for the transfer of militants. —AP