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August 26th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : The Lebanese Hezbollah, in cooperation with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) captured most of an ISIS pocket on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon. The remaining ISIS fighters in the region are on their back foot and a complete victory over ISIS and other insurgents in the border region is expected in the near future.
The announcement was made by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech on Thursday. Parallel to the fighting talks on a truce with the ISIS insurgents have begun, but a military victory is more likely, Nasrallah said.
Syrian troops and Iran-backed, Shiite Hezbollah have been fighting to oust ISIS from Syria’s western Qalamoun region. The attack began last week, coinciding with a Lebanese army offensive against ISIS on its side of the border in northeast Lebanon. The zone straddling the border is the last part of the Lebanese-Syrian frontier under ISIS control.
Both offensives have advanced toward the border from opposite sides. The Lebanese army says it is not coordinating the assault with the Syrian army or with Hezbollah, which Washington classifies as a terrorist group.
Cooperation and coordination with any “party militia” is a highly sensitive issue for the National Lebanese Army which traditionally tries to maintain a neutral role in the country that has experienced decades of civil war and clashes between party and religious militia.
Another aspect is that Lebanon would jeopardize sizeable U.S. and French military aid if the National Army overtly cooperated and coordinated with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) or with Hezbollah, whom the USA designates as a terrorist organization. Overt coordination between the Lebanese national Army would also force a response from Sunni prime Minister Saad Hariri and other Lebanese parties, as well as from neighboring Israel.
However, these and other “complex issues which anyone who has observed Lebanon’s history since the civil war there knows ad nauseam” set aside for a while, Nasrallah said the frontier battle is nearing victory, “a very, very big victory”, he added. “So far, more than 270 square km have been fully captured on Syrian land” by Hezbollah and the Syrian army, he said. “Around 40 square km remain under ISIS control,” he added.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) isn’t the only insurgent group in the border region that is on its back foot. Earlier this month fighters from the Syrian Al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra left Lebanon’s border region under an evacuation deal after Hezbollah routed them in their last footholds there. Thousands of refugees also departed with them to “rebel territory” in Syria.
Standoff between Al-Nusra and Lebanese military in Arsal, August 2014.
Northeast Lebanon saw one of the worst spillovers of Syria’s war into Lebanon in 2014, when ISIS and Nusra Front militants briefly overran the border town of Arsal. The fate of nine Lebanese soldiers that ISIS took captive then remains unknown. ISIS leaders in Syria’s western Qalamoun had asked for negotiations, Nasrallah said on Thursday. “The first condition of any deal reached with ISIS will be revealing the fate of the Lebanese soldiers,” he added.
If the Lebanese state wanted to negotiate an evacuation deal with ISIS militants on its own side, Damascus would be ready to cooperate, Nasrallah said. “But the condition is an official Lebanese request, and public coordination, not under the table,” he said.
It’s worth noting that the presence of Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS in Lebanon increased significantly after Hezbollah intervened in the Qalamoun battle in Syria in 2013. It is also worth recalling that on Monday, October 14, 2013, the Chairman of the Lebanese Arab Democratic Party, Rifaat Eid, warned that Saudi Arabia was planning to “burn Lebanon in retaliation if Hezbollah intervened in the battle for the Qalamoun region”. Lebanon’s Arab Democratic Party maintains close ties to the Syrian Arab Baath Party. During a news conference, Rifaat Eid said: Saudi Arabia is running the battle in Qalamoun and we have information that it (Saudi Arabia) has warned Hezbollah against participating in the battle (because) it will cost (Hezbollah) a lot in the Bekaa and even in the North of Lebanon”.
CH/L – nsnbc 26.08.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/08/26/hezbollah-and-syrian-army-near-victory-over-isis-along-the-lebanese-syrian-border/
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