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BEIRUT: A convoy of nearly 200 vehicles carrying Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (JFS) militants and their families finally left northeast Lebanon for rebel-held Idlib in Syria, after two days of tense talks on a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah.
JFS had demanded that 20 of its fighters be freed from Roumieh prison east of Beirut, but Lebanese authorities refused. In the end three fighters were released, in exchange for three Hezbollah members held by JFS. Five more Hezbollah fighters held by JFS will be released when the convoy reaches Idlib.
Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, Lebanon’s head of general security, said the negotiations involved “no wanted people from Ain Al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp. It is out of discussion.
“We received a lot of requests in the last few hours. Some wanted persons have symbolic significance. It is impossible to deliver them with their hands stained with Lebanese blood and the blood of the Lebanese army.”
The JFS militants, their families and other displaced people left the town of Arsal in 168 buses that had been waiting in Wadi Humaid for 48 hours, under the protection of the Lebanese army. Some militants took their own pick-up trucks to join the convoy. It is not known if the JFS leader Abu Malek Al-Talli was among those who left.
Hezbollah said the militants burned down their headquarters and destroyed vehicles and military equipment before leaving. It said a total of 7,777 people took part in the evacuation, of whom more than 1,000 were armed militants.
A map on the Facebook page of the Nors Studies Center suggested the convoy would travel through Fleta, Nabek, Qara, Bureij and on to Homs. From there, it will head for Salmyeh then to Al-Sa’an in the countryside of Hama, the last point of control of the Syrian regime.
It will then enter rebel-held areas before moving northward to Idlib.
The convoy was accompanied by vehicles of the Syrian Red Crescent inside Syrian territories, under the terms of the agreement.