Russia helps Daesh convoy cross Syria
US-led coalition stops surveillance of militants after a direct Russian request
ADaesh convoy stuck in the middle of the Syrian Desert for more than two weeks because of US air strikes finally reached eastern Syria late Wednesday night, according to reports from citizen journalist groups in the area. The convoy reached the territory held by Daesh, despite vows by the US-led coalition fighting the group that it would not be allowed to do so.
There was no official confirmation of the reports, which were from credible contacts in eastern Syria that were monitored in Damascus, the capital. A spokesman for the coalition, Colonel Ryan Dillon, said early yesterday in Baghdad that he had no comment on the matter.
The reports said that the remnants of the convoy, which originally carried 600 Daesh fighters and their family members, had reached Mayadin in eastern Deir Al Zor province, near the border with Iraq.
The coalition announced last Friday that it was removing surveillance aircraft from the vicinity of the convoy at the request of the Russian authorities, because Russian warplanes were involved in supporting a Syrian army advance into Deir Al Zor province.
The convoy, originally consisting of 17 vehicles — buses and ambulances — and escorts from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia group, had been stuck near Sukhna, on the main highway from Damascus to the city of Deir Al Zor, where the Syrian army claimed it ended a blockade by Daesh last week. The convoy was whittled down to 11 vehicles when six returned to Syrian government territory in western Syria, coalition officials said. In a deal brokered by Hezbollah, Daesh militants and their families had been allowed to leave an area on the Lebanese-Syrian border in exchange for turning over the bodies of Lebanese soldiers and Hezbollah militants, as well as an Iranian officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. They were promised free passage to the town of Al Bukamal, in the southern part of Deir Al Zor province.
But the US-led coalition bombed the highway to prevent the convoy from advancing and carried out air strikes against Daesh units said to be coming to the convoy’s aid, but did not strike the convoy itself because of the presence of women and children.
Coalition officials said the US military and its allies were not a party to the deal among Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria and Daesh, and did not want to let Daesh fighters to return to the battlefield. Iraq also criticised the deal because the convoy’s intended destination, Al Bukamal, is near Iraqi battlefronts against Daesh.
According to the antigovernment sources monitored in Damascus, once the US surveillance aircraft withdrew from the area on September 8, the convoy was free to move, but Hezbollah extracted further concessions from Daesh, including the release of a Hezbollah prisoner of war, Ahmad Martouk.