Ceasefire halts Syria-Lebanon border fight against Daesh

beirut — A ceasefire took effect on Sunday in a Daesh enclave straddling the Syria-Lebanon border, where the militants have been fighting the Lebanese army on one front and Hezbollah with Syrian troops on the other.

The Lebanese army announced that a ceasefire in its own offensive took effect at 7.00am (0400 GMT) but did not mention Syria’s side of the frontier.

Hezbollah and the Syrian army declared a ceasefire in their attack against Daesh in Syria’s western Qalamoun region, Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV said.

The battle began a week ago when the Lebanese army, and Hezbollah together with Syrian government forces, launched separate but simultaneous assaults.

Both offensives have advanced towards the border from opposite sides. Lebanon and Hezbollah each said they have made gains against the militants, driving them back into a smaller zone in the arid hills on the border. The Daesh enclave in the barren mountains marks the last militant foothold along the Syria-Lebanon frontier.

Northeast Lebanon saw one of the worst spillovers of Syria’s war into Lebanon in 2014, when Daesh and other militants briefly overran the border town of Arsal. The fate of nine soldiers that Daesh took captive then remains unknown.

The Lebanese army said the ceasefire would pave the way for negotiations over the fate of the soldiers.

A military source said militants had “succumbed under fire and asked for negotiations. But if any devious intentions appear,” the army would press on with its assault near the town of Ras Baalbeck in the northeast.

Talks have begun with mediation by the head of Lebanon’s internal security agency, a security source said. Several ministers arrived in an army command centre in Ras Baalbeck on Sunday to monitor the situation.

Nusra Front militants and a Syrian rebel group withdrew from Lebanon’s border region earlier this month. They departed for insurgent territory in Syria after offensives by Hezbollah and the Syrian army. The security source said on Sunday that Hezbollah entered an area in western Qalamoun to confirm if the Lebanese soldiers were buried there.

Under the first stage of the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah forces were digging there for remains thought to belong to some of the soldiers, said an official in the military alliance fighting in support of the Damascus government.

Daesh militants have asked Hezbollah and the Syrian army to let them withdraw from the enclave to Syria’s Deir Al Zor province, the official had said. —