Fighters given bus ride to Isis territory
Hundreds of Isis militants were bussed from a Lebanese-Syrian border region yesterday in the jihadist group’s first publicly agreed evacuation deal.
A convoy of some 600 Isis (Islamic State) fighters and their families reached an exchange point in eastern Syria, from where they were to be transferred into Isis-held territory.
The convoy of buses and ambulances left the border area under Syrian military escort after a ceasefire took effect on Sunday.
Under the agreement, the bodies of nine Lebanese soldiers and one Iranian military adviser killed by Isis in Syria were to be returned.
The soldiers were kidnapped in 2014 after Isis militants clashed with the army and seized territory in the mountainous east of the country.
The army has, in the past few days, located the remains of nine people it believes to be the men.
Last week it launched an offensive in the Juroud Arsal and Ras Baalbek regions, while simultaneously, Lebanese Shia militia Hizbollah and their allies in the Syrian Government pushed from the Syrian side of the border.
The deal, struck between the jihadists, both the Lebanese and Syrian governments and Hizbollah, sees the militants taken to Deir ez-Zor, the only Syrian province still under Isis control.
The agreement marks the first time Isis fighters have surrendered en masse in this way since the terrorist group was formed more than three years ago.
Isis jihadists fought to the death in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, refusing any agreement with the army.
The last pocket of militants fighting for the northern Syrian town of Tabqa agreed a deal with US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which allowed them to retreat to other areas under Isis control. However, the USled coalition is thought to have then targeted the fighters as they fled.
Major General Abbas Ibrahim, the Lebanese intelligence chief who was the Government’s chief negotiator in trying to win the return of Lebanon’s captured soldiers, defended the arrangement.
“The return of Daesh militants in air-conditioned cars to their countries is permissible because Lebanon adheres to the philosophy of a state that does not exact revenge,” he said in a radio interview.
“We do not bargain. We are in the position of the victor and are imposing conditions.”
General Fadi Daoud said the area had been secured, but that there was still a danger of mines.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader, declared the border region completely free of the extremists for the first time in years. He said the battle had cost Hizbollah 11 fighters and the Syrian army seven soldiers. Lebanon’s army has said it lost six soldiers.