Lebanon's Hezbollah says convoy carrying Daesh militants still in Syria

The US-led coalition is preventing the convoy relocating Daesh militants and civilians from reaching its destination.

Hezbollah fighters stand near military tanks in Western Qalamoun, Syria August 23, 2017.
Reuters

Hezbollah fighters stand near military tanks in Western Qalamoun, Syria August 23, 2017.

Lebanon's Hezbollah group said in a statement on Saturday that it and the Syrian regime had fulfilled their obligations by safely transporting a convoy of Daesh militants and their families out of Syrian regime territory.

However, it said US warplanes were stopping the convoy from moving towards its destination in Daesh-held territory and were also preventing any aid reaching the buses, which had old people, casualties and pregnant women aboard.

The convoy was heading to Deir al-Zour Province, a Daesh stronghold.

Six buses from the convoy were still in Syrian regime territory and in the care of Hezbollah and the Syrian regime, the statement said.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia group allied to Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad, called on the international community to intervene to prevent what it called a massacre of the people stuck on the buses in the desert.

The US-led coalition fighting Daesh has said it would block the convoy from reaching areas controlled by the militant group in eastern Syria but would not attack the convoy because it contains civilians as well as fighters.

The coalition says it has struck Daesh militants in vehicles moving towards the convoy but will not strike any civilian vehicles. It said on Friday that the convoy was still in regime-held territory. 

Raqqa seized?

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-allied ground force mainly comprised of PKK-linked YPG militants, said on Friday it had taken the last districts in the old city of Raqqa from Daesh, but the US-led coalition could not confirm the report.

"We declare to our people the liberation of the old city of Raqqa," the SDF said in a statement.

Loading...

Hama

Syrian regime forces and their allies were fighting on Saturday in Daesh’s last pocket in central Syria after taking the heavily defended village of Uqairabat, in the province of Hama, on Friday, a war monitor reported.

Regime forces released footage showing Russian helicopters and artillery tanks firing at Daesh targets on Friday in the eastern outskirts of al-Salamiya, near the village of Uqairabat.

The enclave has been the site of intense fighting for months. Evicting militants from the area is viewed as necessary to improve security on the main road running between the cities of Homs and Aleppo.
Late on Friday, a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah said the army had captured Uqairabat, which it described as Daesh’s stronghold in that region.

The war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the army and its allies had also taken other villages in the area, aided by Russian helicopters, and reported that intense fighting continued.

Route 6