In recent weeks, the Lebanese Army was involved in separate but simultaneous offensives with Islamist Hezbollah militias and Syrian Army units against Islamic State group positions along the Lebanese-Syrian border.
However, The New York Times just reported that the Lebanese Army and their allies in Hezbollah and Syria had reached an agreement for a cease-fire with the militant jihadists, part of a bid for the return of Lebanese soldiers held captive by the Islamic State group since 2014.
Left out of that piece from The Times was the fact that the truce included a deal to allow for roughly 600 Islamic State group fighters, using their families as cover, to safely exit the besieged border area and be provided safe passage across Syria to territory still held by the so-called caliphate near the Syrian border with Iraq, according to American Thinker.
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Unsurprisingly, all other parties in the fight against the Islamic State group had been left out of those likely Russian-blessed cease-fire negotiations and resultant deal allowing safe retreat — most notably the U.S. and Iraq — but rather than just gripe about it in diplomatic circles, the U.S.-led coalition went ahead and did something about it.
According to CNN, the anti-Islamic State group coalition launched airstrikes against the routes being taken by the retreating fighters, essentially cratering the roads and making them impassable for the fleeing convoy of buses and trucks, all while avoiding causing unnecessary casualties for the women and children in tow with the fighters.
Col. Ryan Dillon, coalition spokesman, informed CNN that the “coalition conducted air strikes to stop a convoy of ISIS fighters and their families from reaching an ISIS-held area in eastern Syria from the Lebanese border under a truce deal.”
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Dillon added that “the coalition has not struck the convoy. In accordance with the law of armed conflict, the coalition will take action against ISIS whenever and wherever we are able to without harming civilians.”
His words were echoed by Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, who told CNN, “The coalition is not a party to the agreement between Lebanese Hezbollah and ISIS. Russian and pro-regime counter-ISIS words ring hollow when they allow known terrorists to transit territory under their control.”
“ISIS is a global threat; relocating terrorists from one place to another for someone else to deal with is not a lasting solution,” stated Pahon, who then added, “the coalition is monitoring the movement of these fighters in real-time. In accordance with the law of armed conflict, the coalition will take action against ISIS whenever and wherever we are able to.”
The negotiated cease-fire and deal allowing safe passage toward Iraq was also decried by Kurdish leaders and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
“We are not happy with the deal and we consider it a mistake by transferring territories to an area nearby the Syrian-Iraqi border,” al-Abadi stated Tuesday during a news conference in Baghdad. “ISIS is dying and we should not give it a chance to breathe.”
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Indeed they are dying, and no, we should not give them a chance to breathe, or remove our boots from their necks for even a moment, but instead increase pressure until they are fully crushed, never to rise again.
If Lebanon and Hezbollah want to bow out of the fight against the Islamic State group or think it isn’t their problem any more since it is no longer along their border, that is their own ignoble decision, and not one that U.S. and other coalition forces are bound by.
Hopefully that convoy will never reach the Islamic State group-held territory they set off for, and each known jihadist militant is taken out while their families are left unharmed.
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