Refugees, fighters reach Syria after truce with Hezbollah

Nearly 8,000 Syrian refugees and fighters from Lebanon arrived in central Syria Thursday as part of a ceasefire deal that also saw five Hezbollah fighters released, a monitor and the Shiite militant group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the refugees and fighters from Al-Qaeda's former Syrian branch arrived in bus convoys to a region held by rebel and jihadists.

In return, the jihadist group released five fighters from Syria regime ally Hezbollah, the Observatory and Hezbollah's "War Media" outlet said.

The swap was part of a broader ceasefire deal announced last week between the two sides which ended six days of fighting in the mountainous Jurud Arsal region in the restive border area between Lebanon and Syria.

"The operation is now over," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"All five convoys of buses carrying fighters from Fateh al-Sham Front and (Syrian) civilians have reached the area" in central Hama province held by rebels and jihadists, he said.

As each convoy reached its destination, the jihadist group -- once known as Al-Nusra Front and later as Fateh al-Sham Front -- released one Hezbollah fighter, the Lebanese movement's "War Media" and the Observatory said.

A source close to Hezbollah said the five fighters had been captured by the former Al-Qaeda affiliate during clashes in Aleppo province.

An AFP correspondent in Al-Saan in Hama province, said dozens of trucks transported masked fighters who carried light weapons as well as Syrian civilian refugees, including women and children.

- Hideout for militants -

The fighters and the civilians were later seen getting off the buses and boarding others vehicles belonging to local humanitarian organisations for an unknown destination.

Relief workers handed out water bottles and food to the evacuees, the correspondent said.

On Wednesday, a total of 7,777 people -- mostly civilians -- were evacuated from Jurud Arsal in line with the ceasefire.

Under the deal -- which also calls for the release of three detainees from a Lebanon prison -- the bodies of nine Syrian fighters were swapped for the remains of five Hezbollah fighters.

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 Syria's northwestern Idlib province.

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.

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.

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.

source: AFP