Daesh quits Syria-Lebanon border region under deal
ras baalbek (Lebanon) — Daesh militants and their families began to evacuate on Monday from a border area between Lebanon and Syria 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 towards a town held by the extremist group in eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq.
The transfer comes nearly a week after Lebanon launched a military campaign to drive Daesh from the rugged mountainous area along its border with Syria.
Separately but simultaneously, the Syrian army and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia began carrying out their own offensive to pressure Daesh 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 Syria-Lebanon border, towards the Daesh-held Boukamal in eastern Syria, along the border with Iraq.
Syrian Al Ikhbariya TV reported that there were about 250 militants in the transfer. The Central Military Centre, a media outlet run by Hezbollah, said ambulances ferried 25 Daesh wounded fighters from the area.
The Lebanese military on Monday took journalists on a tour of areas along the border near Ras Baalbek that were recaptured from Daesh in the past week, briefing them on military tactics used to dislodge the group.
A Lebanese official said a number of militants were also leaving from the Lebanese side of the border, to be transferred with the Syrian convoy. He 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 by Daesh in 2014. On Sunday, the Lebanese army, on one side, and Hezbollah and the Syrian army on another, declared separate but simultaneous ceasefires. Shortly afterward, the remains of eight soldiers were located and dug out from the ground in an area near the border with Syria. —