A group of about 300 Islamic State (IS) fighters halted by US airstrikes on Wednesday after retreating from the Lebanese border is heading back into the heart of territory controlled by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, US military officials said today.
The militants were released by the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah on Tuesday in exchange for the bodies of Lebanese soldiers and Hezbollah fighters captured by the group. They had been traveling toward the IS-controlled Deir ez-Zor province, where they had hoped to link up with IS fighters in Iraq. The US-led coalition fighting the group in Syria interrupted those plans Wednesday, cratering the road toward the battlefront with airstrikes.