Tabnak – After a successful operation by Hezbollah caused the defeat of rebel and terrorist forces active in Lebanon-Syria border, the process of evacuation of the rebels from the area started today. This is while, Hezbollah forces and the Lebanese Army are still preparing for a final push against ISIS terrorists.
According to the local sources, hundreds of Syrian militants have started evacuating from an enclave in Lebanon on the border with Syria after the defeat of Takfiri terrorists during a Hezbollah offensive.
Buses carrying 300 Saraya Ahl al-Sham militants and 3,000 Syrian refugees left eastern Arsal on Monday at 10:00 a.m. local time, the Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Manar television network reported.
The departure comes as part of an agreement that followed a July's offensive by the Lebanese resistance movement and the Syrian army to drive out militants from their last stronghold in the border area between Lebanon and Syria.
Earlier this month, the Lebanese resistance movement said its fighters had regained control over all areas in Arsal, which lies about 124 kilometers northeast of Beirut. Al-Nusra Front terrorists, now known as Fateh al-Sham, withdrew following a series of consecutive defeats that forced them to agree to a ceasefire.
On Friday, the Lebanese security official overseeing the arrangements, General Abbas Ibrahim, said a group of civilians would go to Assal al-Ward, an area just across the border from Arsal and held by the Syrian government.
The militants and their families will go to another part of Syria which he did not identify. Hezbollah media sources said last week that they would go to the rebel-held town of al-Ruhaiba in the Eastern Qalamoun region.
Meanwhile, in a speech Sunday marking the 11th anniversary of the cease-fire that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah drew parallels between that fight — which ended with Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon — and the recent battle in Arsal.
Israel "is among the most saddened” by Hezbollah’s victory in the Arsal area, Nasrallah said. "Israel and America are crying over the failure,” he said, because the rebels, like Israel and the US, oppose Assad.
The Washington Post notes in a report that the only militants remaining on Lebanon’s side of the border now are members of the ISIS terrorist group — hundreds of ISIS fighters control a stretch of land that is almost equally split between Lebanon and Syria.
The Lebanese army has been preparing an attack on ISIS-held areas for weeks there, sending in reinforcements and pounding the area with artillery shells and rockets. The Syrian army and Hezbollah are also preparing for a simultaneous attack on ISIS on the Syrian side of the border.
As a result of the violence committed by ISIS and other armed groups, more than 1 million Syrian refugees are sheltering in Lebanon, about a quarter of its total population. Hezbollah has stepped up calls for the Lebanese government to engage directly with Damascus over the return of refugees to Syria.
