BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station is reporting that the militant group is exchanging the bodies of dead fighters with al-Qaida along the Lebanese-Syrian border in the first stage of a settlement that would restore order to the border region.
Hezbollah says it is handing over the bodies of nine al-Qaida fighters in exchange for the bodies five of its own who were killed in two weeks of battles along the frontier. Al-Manar broadcast the report Sunday.
The fighting ended with a cease-fire Thursday to allow negotiations to proceed to send the al-Qaida fighters and their families to Syria's northwest Idlib province, where an al-Qaida affiliate is in control. It would leave the Lebanese and Syrian states and Hezbollah in control of this contested stretch of the border.