Islamic State militants and their families began leaving a border area between Lebanon and Syria on Monday as part of a controversial negotiated deal with the extremist group to end its presence there, Lebanese and Syrian media reported.
An unidentified number of militants and their families headed in buses toward a town held by the Islamic State group in far eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq. The evacuation will effectively end the presence of jihadist militant groups on the border, after al-Qaida-linked fighters evacuated earlier this month.
The transfer comes nearly a week after the Lebanese army launched a military campaign to drive IS from the rugged mountainous area along its border with Syria.
The Syrian army and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbullah, which has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria since 2013, have been waging their own separate but simultaneous offensive to pressure IS on the Syrian side of the border.
Nearly two dozen buses and 11 ambulances carried the militants and their families Monday from the area straddling the Syria-Lebanon border toward the IS-held town of Boukamal in eastern Syria.
Syrian Al-Ikhbariya TV reported that there were about 250 militants in the transfer. The Central Military Center, a media outlet run by Hizbullah, said ambulances ferried 25 IS wounded fighters from the area.