The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says a deal seems to have been struck by the Syrian regime and its Iranian backers with the extremist group on Saturday.
The 400 fighters have been transferred to areas “close to the control of ‘jihadi’ elements working in the Idlib governorate”, the war monitor added.
Idlib, the last opposition hold-out in Syria, is home to countless jihadi and rival Syrian militias, some of them backed by Turkey. It also houses some three million people. A possible Russian-backed regime offensive was averted last week when Russia and Turkey reached a de-escalation agreement.
These groups will have to withdraw their heavy weapons beyond the 15 kilometer buffer zone by mid-October.
Several of these groups have clashed with one another, especially the former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Turkish backed Ahrar al-Sham and its allies. ISIS, meanwhile, is on bad terms with everyone.
SOHR reported that the eastern Idlib countryside has already seen ISIS activity, “killing 315 civilians, fighters, and leaders, Syrian and non-Syrian, as these cells have created such an unprecedented security decay”, added SOHR.
Sources told the war monitor that the deal might be in return for the regime taking control of the Talul al-Safa area in the Damascus countryside bordering the Sweida governorate, and the release of around 30 Druze captives taken hostage in the country’s south in August.
SOHR speculates the deal might also be an attempt by the regime and its backers to put an end to an imminent ISIS attack on al-Boukamal.
Many such deals have taken place before. Dozens of ISIS fighters from Syria were sent to the Iraqi border under a withdrawal agreement in 2017.
