Daesh(also known as ISIS or ISIL) terrorists in Lebanon-Syria border regions are besieged and victory over them is imminent, Lebanese Hezbollah leader said.
'Daesh elements prefer to leave the area if they obtain the approval of their central command,' Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Thursday.
'On the Lebanese side, the main objective of the campaign is deploying the army on the border with Syria, securing it and discovering the destiny of the Lebanese military captives who had been kidnapped by Daesh in 2014,' Al-Manar website quoted Nasrallah.
Speaking about Syria goals, he noted that Damascus has planned to liberate the outskirts of western Qalamoun from Daesh terrorists and secure the Damascus-Homs road.
'On the first day of the campaign, Hezbollah fighters liberated a 20 square kilometers in the Lebanese territories in Al-Hosn Castle, according to Nasrallah who emphasized that 100 square kilometers of the Lebanese territories have been liberated by the Lebanese Army.
Nasrallah said that on the Syrian side, Hezbollah and the Syrian Army have liberated over 270 out of around 310 square kilometers of territory in western Qalamoun from Daesh terrorists who still hold around 40 square kilometers on the Syrian side of the border and 20 kilometers on Lebanese territory.
Currently, Daesh terrorists are besieged in 60 kilometers with a semi-circle in the center of the battlefield, he added.
'Dozens of Daesh terrorists have turned themselves in to the resistance fighters and the Syrian army; however, Hezbollah did not announce that publicly due to its moral commitment.'
Nasrallah said that the remaining Daesh terrorists are completely confused and desire to conclude a certain settlement to leave the area, but the terrorist groups central command is not concerned with letting its terrorists leave the Lebanese-Syrian outskirts peacefully due to its well-know immoral and hard-line mentality.
'Our information confirms that ISIL central command is heedless about the result of the battle even if all its terrorists in the outskirts get killed.'
Hezbollah accepted Daesh request to start negotiations, Nasrallah said, noting that the battle operations will continue during the talks.
'The military option overweighs the negotiation track due to the hard-line mentality of Daesh command,' he added.
Addressing the Lebanese people, Hezbollah leader said, “You are ahead of a major victory, do not let the irritants spoil your achievements. After the battle, lot things will be said about the real intentions of the various parties regarding the war on the terrorist groups.'
“US embassy in Lebanon warned some media outlets against presenting Hezbollah as the powerful party that crushes the terrorist groups established by the US and as the country defender, so they avoided covering and broadcasting the developments of the outskirts battle on the Syrian side.”
“Unfortunately, those media outlets lost their credibility, while Hezbollah achievements appear clearly to the whole world,' he said.
“Some of those outlets do not consider that Hezbollah soldiers who get killed during the battle as martyrs; this is immoral and hurtful.”
“The remarkable victory over ISIL in the outskirts results from the army-people-resistance golden formula, and the Syrian army has contributed to this formula during this battle,' Nasrallah added.
Nasrallah concluded his speech by stressing that on May 25 Lebanon celebrates the anniversary of the first liberation, and that the date of the imminent victory over ISIL will become the anniversary of the second liberation.
(IRNA)
