Some IS fighters may have fled to Iraq

BEIRUT — An Islamic State convoy stranded in the Syrian desert for five days has split up and some fighters may have found their way into Iraq, despite the U.S. military’s determination to stop them from reaching militant-controlled territory, according to reports from Syrian activists, Iraqi officials and the U.S. military on Sunday.

Conflicting reports and claims put the 17 buses that made up the original convoy in a variety of locations, illustrating the difficulty of establishing with any certainty events in the remote desert war zone spanning Iraq and Syria.

The buses set out in a convoy from western Syria on Tuesday under the terms of a deal brokered by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement to relocate the fighters to the Islamic Statecontrolled town of Bukamal on the Iraqi border, in return for the bodies of Lebanese army, Hezbollah and Iranian soldiers.

The convoy has since become the center of a regionwide controversy over whether such deals are acceptable, with the United States and its allies trading accusations with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies over who is doing more to fight terrorism.

Iraq’s government expressed outrage at the relocation, which would have enabled the 300 Islamic State fighters on board the convoy to reinforce militant positions in Iraq. The U.S. military vowed to prevent them from doing so and on Wednesday blocked the convoy’s path, by bombing the desert road ahead of it.

At least some of the buses have since been stranded in the desert between Syrian government and Islamic State lines, with U.S. warplanes circling overhead to deter any further attempts to reach Islamic State territory.

On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry slammed the U.S. military’s surveillance of the buses as “illogical” and said the lives of pregnant women are at risk, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Also on Sunday, the U.S. military said six of the buses had crossed back into government-held territory and headed toward the Syrian-government-controlled town of Palmyra, leaving 11 buses stuck in the desert. The whereabouts of the six buses that headed to Palmyra were not clear.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said four of the buses reached territory controlled by the Islamic State, in fulfillment of the Hezbollah deal, and that six were stuck in the desert. It did not say what had happened to the other seven buses.

According to Syrians in the area and Iraqi officials, however, all or most of the original fighters who set out on the convoy have got off the buses and made their way to Iraq, using back roads to bypass the path bombed by U.S. warplanes.

Omar Abu Layla, who heads an activist network called Deir al-Zour 24, said the fighters traveled on foot to meet up with Islamic State fighters nearby and have been transported to two western Iraqi towns, Rawa and Aana. He cited the accounts of two reporters in his network who live in the area.