EBRIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly 2,500 Syrian soldiers, who sought refuge in Iraq earlier this month as Bashar al-Assad’s regime was facing a lightning-blitz by a coalition of rebels, are set to be “voluntarily” repatriated to their country in the coming days, a top security official in Iraq’s bordering province of Anbar said on Wednesday.

The soldiers started fleeing to Iraq through the al-Qaim border crossing on December 7, a day before Assad’s regime collapsed. Iraqi officials said at the time that they had entered the country with Baghdad’s permission..

"Starting today, measures have been taken to return Syrian soldiers to their country,” Sa’d Mohammadi, head of the security committee of the Anbar provincial council, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir on Wednesday, adding that the repatriations will begin on Thursday.

Mohammadi said that a total of 2,490 Syrian soldiers are present in Iraq, noting that their return is voluntary.

The HTS-led administration has issued an amnesty to the former regime’s soldiers, designating places for them to hand over their weapons.

During the escalation of the conflict between Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian regime, thousands of soldiers from the Iraqi armed forces, including the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), along with border police, were deployed along the Iraqi-Syrian border in Anbar province. Iraq feared that the developments in the neighboring country could negatively affect its security.

The Shiite-led Iraqi government was among the top allies of Assad, but Baghdad was quick to announce that it did not want to be embroiled in the conflict.