Hezbollah, Nusra swap corpses
8,000 to leave Syria-Lebanon border zone as ceasefire deal advances
BEIRUT, July 30, (Agencies): Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and jihadist militants on Sunday started exchanging the bodies of fighters as part of a ceasefire deal for the restive Syria-Lebanon border.
The truce, announced by the movement and confirmed by Lebanon’s General Security agency on Thursday, ended six days of a Hezbollah-led assault on Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian branch in the mountainous Jurud Arsal border region.
Hezbollah’s “War Media” outlet reported on Sunday that the “first phase of the deal” had begun.
“The bodies of nine Al-Nusra fighters will be handed over to the Lebanese General Security in exchange for the remains of five Hezbollah fighters who died in the Jurud battles,” the outlet said.
It said the bodies of the Syrian militants had been transported to a hospital for medical examinations. Their remains are then expected to be transported to Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.
Al-Nusra Front was Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria until mid-2016 when it broke off ties, before going on to found a new jihadist-led alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now controls large swathes of Idlib.
Hezbollah launched its offensive on Jurud Arsal — a barren border area used by militants as a hideout for several years — on July 21.
The group took media outlets on several guided tours of the territory it had secured, including an underground base allegedly used by militants.
Military-style vests were piled in one corner near stacked sandbags. Papers were strewn all over the carpeted floor in one room, and crates of ammunition were stored in another.
Meanwhile, about 8,000 people have registered to leave the Lebanese border region near Arsal for a rebel-held area of Syria as part of a local ceasefire between Hezbollah and the Nusra Front, a security source in Lebanon said on Sunday.
Russia’s Kremlin-backed international broadcaster RT said a correspondent from its Arabic-language channel was killed Sunday by shelling from the Islamic State group in Syria’s Homs province.
“RT mourns the loss of its correspondent Khaled al-Khatib, who was killed on Sunday July 30 as he was covering the Syrian army’s operation against the terrorist group IS around Sukhna in the eastern parts of Homs province,” the channel wrote in an online announcement in Arabic.
“Our correspondent in central Syria sustained a fatal wound when a shell fired by IS terrorists hit a Syrian army position while he was on a field assignment riddled with danger in al-Baghaliya in rural Homs province.”
Syrian government troops entered Sukhna, the last IS stronghold in the country’s Homs province, on Friday after jihadists began withdrawing, a monitor said.
The town, some 70 kms (45 miles) northeast of the famed ancient city of Palmyra, is the last town on the road to the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where a government garrison has held out under IS siege since early 2015.
Since May, Syria’s army has been conducting a broad military campaign with Russian support to recapture the vast desert that separates the capital Damascus from Deir Ezzor and other towns along the Euphrates Valley.