A commander in the pro-Damascus alliance told Reuters buses holding Islamic State militants entered Syria’s Deir al-Zor on Wednesday in exchange for the release of a Hezbollah prisoner.
Damascus and Hezbollah permitted almost 300 slightly armed militants and 300 relatives to exit the Syria-Lebanon border in a surrender agreement after an operation there last month, the report said.
A U.S.-led coalition prevented the 17 buses from entering Deir al-Zor for weeks, the report said. It was not immediately known if all the buses arrived in Islamic State territory in the eastern Syrian district on Wednesday.
“The deal has been completed,” said the commander in the military alliance fighting on the side the Damascus government.
The buses embarked on the road between the town of al-Sukhna and Deir al-Zor — a main route recently reclaimed by the Syrian army and allied forces, according to the commander.
Along the road, the fighters exchanged the evacuees for a Hezbollah hostage who was kept in Islamic State captivity, the non-Syrian commander added.
Under the evacuation agreement in August, Islamic State fighters fled their border foothold after a week-long conflict and in return they were allowed safe passage to Deir al-Zor province in Syria, the report said.
Hezbollah — supported by Iran — served a crucial role in the battle against Sunni militants along the border, the report said. Since the beginning of the six-year Syrian conflict, it deployed thousands of soldiers to support President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Lebanon’s Shi‘ite Hezbollah recovered the remains of some of its soldiers killed in Syria as part of the exchange and was supposed to get back one of its fighters held captive by Islamic State, the report said.
The agreement also included the retrieval of nine bodies of Lebanese soldiers who were captured by Islamic State in 2014, the report said.
The exchange suspended any insurgent presence from the frontlines of the Syrian conflict where Lebanese soldiers also battled the fighters in a separate operation on its side, the report said.
However, the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State stopped the convoy from reaching IS territory in east Syria, near the border with Iraq by generating roads and demolishing bridges, the report said. As a result, the convoy spilt in two with 11 buses still in the open desert and others fleeing into government territory.
Last week, the U.S. coalition said its surveillance aircraft relocated from the buses in the no-man’s land after pro-Syrian government soldiers traveled past the convoy, the report said. Damascus was liable for the evacuees.
Syrian soldiers and their allies entered Deir al-Zor city — ending an Islamic State siege lasting three years, the report said.
U.S.-backed Syrian soldiers also launched a separate campaign in another area of Deir al-Zor province which became Islamic State’s last major foothold in Syria, according to Reuters.
— WN.com, Jubilee Baez
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