BEIRUT, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said that Hezbollah had made a contribution to the latest cease-fire and the departure of the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front militants, the Daily Star reported on Thursday.
"The government's position is clear and it is to protect the Lebanese. Hezbollah did the operation and achieved something. What matters is the result," Hariri said after meeting with General Security Chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim.
"What matters to us is that life returns to normal in Arsal. The state did its duty and we will not accept the presence of terrorists on any Lebanese territory," the prime minister added.
Hariri also said that the events on the outskirts of Arsal were acceptable to the government.
As the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front militants and their relatives made their way to Syria late Wednesday, all eyes are now on the Islamic State (IS) as the battle to drive terrorism away from Lebanon once and for all edges ever nearer, according to the Daily Star.
Hezbollah fighters and Red Cross teams escorted 116 buses driving 7,777 Syrian nationals, including militants and their families, from Arsal region to the Syrian border. The buses passed through to Syria's Flita town in western Qalamoun as darkness fell.
Abou Malek Al-Talleh, al-Nusra's commander in Lebanon, and 1,116 militant fighters were among the passengers bound for Syria.
Some 17 ambulances evacuating al-Nusra's wounded fighters accompanied the buses. After their departure, the army expanded its reach in the outskirts of Arsal and secured positions overlooking Wadi Hmayyed and Al-Malahi.
Lebanon's General Security, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations as well as Hezbollah oversaw the transportation process from the Lebanese side. Hezbollah, the Syrian Army and Red Crescent oversaw the process once the convoy entered Syria.
The Lebanese Army is poised to attack the militants entrenched in 200 square kilometers of rugged terrain east of the town of Ras Baalbeck north of Arsal, thus ridding Lebanon of public armed presence of the two most ruthless militant groups based in Syria.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah would make a speech Thursday night, to address the aftermath of the liberation of Arsal's outskirts.
The buses carrying fighters and civilians traveled from the outskirts of Arsal toward Flita. From there they would continue to Hama via the Homs highway, then move across the Aleppo province countryside before arriving at the opposition-held north Syrian city of Idlib.
Before the last phase of the deal could be implemented, three al-Nusra militants who had been held in Lebanon's notorious Roumieh Prison were exchanged for three Hezbollah fighters taken captive during the Arsal offensive.
Both groups had exchanged the bodies of slain fighters in the first phase of the agreement Sunday. The cease-fire was agreed after a weeklong ground offensive by Hezbollah against the militants who had been entrenched in the Arsal outskirts for several years.
