BEIRUT: Syrian troops have liberated 19 women and children hostages held by Daesh since July in a military operation in the country's center, ending a months-long crisis that has stunned Syria's Druze religious minority, state media reported Thursday. An opposition war monitor said the release was part of an exchange.
SANA news agency said in its report that the operation occurred in the Hamima area east of the historic town of Palmyra. It said all Daesh fighters in the area where the hostages were held have been killed.
The Suwayda 24 activist collective quoted local officials as saying the women and children held by Daesh have all been freed.
"My happiness is huge," Nashaat Abu Ammar, whose wife, two sons and daughter are among those freed, told The Associated Press by telephone.
The 19 women and children were among 30 people kidnapped by Daesh in the southern province of Sweida on July 25 when militants of the extremist group ambushed residents and went on a killing spree that left at least 216 people dead.
The rare attacks in Sweida province, populated mainly by Syria's minority Druze, came amid a government offensive elsewhere in the country's south. The coordinated attacks across the province, which included several suicide bombings, shattered the calm of a region that had been largely spared from the worst of the violence of Syria's seven-year long civil war.
A Syrian opposition war monitor contradicted the reports on state media, saying Daesh set free the hostages in return for the government's release of women related to Daesh fighters and commanders who were held by Syrian authorities as well as a monetary payment.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not immediately clear how much money the government paid for the release of the hostages.
State TV aired footage of the women, children and teenagers in a desert area standing with soldiers who gave them bread and water. The soldier then asked the women and children for their names and wrote them on a piece of paper. The TV later aired footage showing the former hostages having meals around a table.
"We are living the joy of victory in Syria," Druze cleric Sheikh Kameel Nasr told Syrian state TV.
Since July, one woman died in Daesh's custody while another was shot dead by the extremists. In August, a 19-year-old man was also killed in detention.
Six other hostages, two women and four children, were freed in an exchange with the government last month. Negotiations were expected to free the remaining hostages but after the talks failed, Syrian troops launched a broad offensive against Daesh in southern Syria.
The July 25 attack on the southern city of Sweida and nearby villages was one of the deadliest by the extremists since they lost most of the land they once held in Syria and Iraq.
"I am so happy they have been freed and I thank the Syrian army for that," Abu Ammar said. The man said he is getting ready to leave his village to the provincial capital of Sweida where the freed were expected to be brought later.
By sunset, scores of people gathered in the city of Sweida waiting for the return of the former hostages.
Syria army frees 19 Druze hostages from Daesh
Syria army frees 19 Druze hostages from Daesh
- Hostages freed in an area northeast of Palmyra after the army fought with Daesh militants
- Sweida, which is under state rule, has a mainly Druze religious community
US announces start of effort to ‘eliminate Daesh fighters’ and weapons sites in Syria following deaths of Americans
- “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says
- President Trump earlier pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops
WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the start of an operation to “eliminate Daesh fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites” in Syria following the deaths of three US citizens.
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” he said Friday on social media.
Two Iowa National Guard members and a US civilian interpreter were killed Dec. 13 in an attack in the Syrian desert that the Trump administration has blamed on the Daesh group. The slain National Guard members were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.
Soon after word of the deaths, President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops. Trump has said Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack” and the shooting attack by a gunman came as the US military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.
A US official told The Associated Press that the attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thuderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.
When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.
White House officials noted that Trump had made clear that retaliation was coming.
“President Trump told the world that the United States would retaliate for the killing of our heroes by Daesh in Syria, and he is delivering on that promise,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.
Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring US service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a US civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.
