600 jihadists evacuated to Isil territory after first surrender
HUNDREDS of Isil militants were yesterday bussed from a Lebanese-syrian border region, in the jihadist group’s first publicly agreed evacuation deal.
A convoy of 600 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters and their families reached an exchange point in eastern Syria yesterday afternoon, from where they will be transferred into Isil-held territory.
The convoy of buses and ambulances left the border area under Syrian military escort after a ceasefire took effect on Sunday. Under the agreement, the bodies of nine Lebanese soldiers and one Iranian military adviser killed by Isil in Syria were to be returned.
The soldiers were kidnapped in 2014 after Isil militants clashed with the army and seized territory in the mountainous east of the country. The army has, in the past few days, located the remains of nine people it believes to be the men.
Last week it launched an offensive in the Juroud Arsal and Ras Baalbek regions, while simultaneously, Lebanese Shia militia Hizbollah and their allies in the Syrian government pushed from the Syrian side of the border.
The deal, struck between the jihadists, both the Lebanese and Syrian governments and Hizbollah, sees the militants taken to Deir ez-zor, the only Syrian province still under Isil control.
The agreement marks the first time Isil fighters have surrendered en masse in this way since the terrorist group was formed more than three years ago.
Isil jihadists fought to the death in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, refusing any agreement with the army.
The last pocket of militants fighting for the northern Syrian town of Tabqa agreed a deal with Us-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which allowed them to retreat to other areas under Isil control. However, the Us-led coalition is thought to have then targeted the fighters as they fled.
Maj Gen Abbas Ibrahim, the Lebanese intelligence chief who was the government’s chief negotiator in trying to win the return of Lebanon’s captured soldiers, defended the arrangement.
“The return of Daesh [Isil] militants in air-conditioned cars to their countries is permissible because Lebanon adheres to the philosophy of a state that does not exact revenge,” he said in a radio interview.
“We do not bargain. We are in the position of the victor and are imposing conditions.” Gen Fadi Daoud said the area had been secured, but that there was still a danger of mines. “Daesh is done, but we may still find caves with bombs in them,” he said.
“There are caves and small rooms in the area. If a soldier doesn’t go into each room, clear it, and mark it as safe, then we can’t say that we’re done.”
Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s leader, declared the border region completely free of the extremists for the first time in years. He said the battle had cost Hizbollah 11 fighters and the Syrian army seven soldiers. Lebanon’s army has said it lost six soldiers.