Evacuation begins after Syria-Lebanon border truce

Around 7,000 people including Syrian militants and refugees began quitting the restive border area between Lebanon and Syria on Wednesday under a ceasefire deal, Lebanon's Hezbollah movement said.

The deal, announced last week, ended six days of fighting in the mountainous Jurud Arsal region between the powerful Shiite Hezbollah movement and fighters from Al-Qaeda's former Syrian branch.

Jurud Arsal had been used for years as a hideout by Syrian militants but was also home to an unknown number of refugees seeking shelter from Syria's six-year war. 

On Wednesday, Hezbollah's "War Media" outlet and Al-Manar television station reported the evacuation had begun.

"The buses carrying Al-Nusra Front fighters and their families crossed the first two points held by the resistance (Hezbollah)... in Jurud Arsal," the "War Media" outlet said.

Al-Nusra Front is the name of the Syrian faction that was previously an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

"The convoy carrying the Al-Nusra Front militants and their families is headed by Lebanon's General Security and the Red Cross," the outlet added.

Lebanese television stations showed footage from the desolate border area of buses winding their way along dirt roads, waved along by Hezbollah fighters.

The buses are expected to head to the Syrian town of Flita, and then on to the northern province of Aleppo before heading to the opposition-held province of Idlib in the northwest of the country.

A total of 7,777 people including armed men and civilians are leaving under the agreement.

Al-Nusra Front was Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until mid-2016 when it broke off ties, before going on to found a new jihadist-led alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now controls large swathes of Idlib.

Hezbollah launched the offensive on the Syrian militants on July 21 and had cornered rival fighters in a small pocket of territory when it announced the truce. 

As part of the agreement, three Hezbollah fighters were also released by HTS on Wednesday in exchange for three detainees from Lebanon's Roumieh prison.

Hezbollah's War Media and HTS-affiliated social media channel Ibaa reported the exchange, but did not say whether the Roumieh detainees were Syrian or Lebanese.

Lebanon's National News Agency reported that the released Hezbollah fighters had arrived in the Lebanese town of Al-Labweh and received a "festive welcome" including "fireworks, celebratory gunfire, and throwing rice".

The first phase of the deal took place on Monday, when Hezbollah and HTS exchanged the bodies of nine Syrian fighters for the remains of five Hezbollah militants.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees live in the town of Arsal, adjacent to the border region, and an unknown number are also thought to have taken shelter in the surrounding mountains.

More than one million Syrians are registered with the United Nations as refugees in Lebanon, a country of just four million people. 

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement on Wednesday it was not involved in the deal or the return of fighters and their families.

It added that refugee returns should "be individual decisions, based on objective information about the conditions in the place of intended return, and made free from undue pressure".

Source: AFP