US launches attack on ISIL fighters who near militants’ bus convoy
Buses carrying 300 ISIL militants and their families across Syria had yet to reach their destination yesterday as the US military attacked fellow fighters approaching the convoy and threatened further action.
Col Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the US-led coalition against ISIL in Syria and Iraq, said that the US military was continuing to closely monitor the movement of buses.
The US bombed roads in Syria on Wednesday to prevent the convoy from reaching the city of Albu Kamal on the Syrian-Iraqi border. The ISIL members were being bused from the Lebanese-Syrian border after an agreement last weekend to end fighting between ISIL and the Lebanese and Syrian militaries and Hizbollah.
Col Dillon said that the US had also struck “ISIL vehicles and fighters that were moving from ISIL-held territory in eastern Syria towards the buses” yesterday, but not the convoy.
Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addressed criticism of the deal on Wednesday, particularly from Iraqi leaders who said the ISIL fighters would cross the border into Iraq.
He pointed out that Hizbollah was on the front lines of the fight against ISIL around Albu Kamal and the nearby city of Deir Ezzor, one of ISIL’s last strongholds in Syria.
“The agreement decided to transfer a number of armed men from the Syrian territory to Syrian territory and not to Iraqi territory,” Mr Nasrallah said. “We are transporting these defeated militants from a front where we are fighting to another front where we are fighting.”
The deal was struck between Hizbollah, the Syrian government and the Lebanese government after eight days of fighting that left ISIL militants trapped between Hizbollah and the Syrian government and the Lebanese army.
Iraqi politicians, including prime minister Haider Al Abadi, said they feared the militants would enter the Iraqi city of Al Qaim from Albu Kamal.
ISIL controls the border region between the two cities, as well as Al Qaim.
But not all Iraqi politicians were concerned.
“They have transferred them to the killing zone. They are about 300 fighters, so we are ready to kill all of them,” said Ahmed Al Assadi, a member of parliament and a spokesman for the Hashed Al Shaabi, a group of Iraqi militias that fights against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, sometimes in co-ordination with Hizbollah.
The deal struck with ISIL was not the first negotiation between Hizbollah and militants fighting the Syrian and Lebanese governments.
Last month, about 10,000 Syrian fighters and civilians left Lebanon after Hizbollah struck deals with other militant groups in northern Lebanon.
In recent years, the Syrian government has also reached agreements with rebel groups that have led to relocations of fighters and civilians within Syria.
A source inside Syria said that deals like the one struck with ISIL represented the best way forward.
“The first deal to evacuate insurgents rather than fight them to the death took place in Homs in 2014 and that established a pattern that is without precedent in wars as far as I can tell,” the source said.
“Over and over again, the dominant military actor has allowed the weaker and almost defeated enemy to be safely evacuated to enemy territory.
“These deals are more durable but, of course, there will have to be an inevitable showdown with the extremists sent to insurgent or ISIL-held territory.”
The source downplayed the likelihood that the ISIL fighters would move from Syria to Iraq.
“The most likely front they will go to is Deir Ezzor, where they are most needed to fight the Syrian government and its allies. ISIL has lost in Iraq, there’s no point going there.”
This week, Mr Nasrallah addressed the particulars of the deal with ISIL, explaining that many of the militant group’s demands, including the release of ISIL prisoners in Lebanon and a deal that would be carried out in several stages, had been rejected.
“From the very first moment, Daesh demanded a ceasefire,” Mr Nasrallah said.
“Neither we nor the Lebanese army nor the Syrian army ever thought of agreeing on a ceasefire to start negotiations. When Daesh found itself cornered and before a decisive battle, it gave in and collapsed.”