Reeking of death, strewn with dirt-plastered debris, Islamic State’s now-captured hideouts on the Syria-Lebanon border were the squalid homes of the desperate.
In one three-roomed lair, a rusty stove is stood next to a soiled mattress, with stains of unknown substances across the rough floor. Dirty tissues, petrol canisters and rubbish litter the ground.
‘There were eight Daesh here’, said a Lebanese soldier now guarding the hideout, using the Arabic acronym for the terror group.
Hideout: ISIS fighters had been living in this concrete house near the Syrian border
MailOnline accessed the grimy shelter while embedded with the Lebanese Army, at a location called Lazzab, just half-a-mile from the Syrian border in Lebanon’s northern hills.
Graffiti on the lair’s dirty grey wall reads: ‘Heroes of the Army/Operation Dawn of the Outskirts/ Dedicated to Ghassan Hamieh’.
Dawn of the Outskirts is the current major military offensive to oust ISIS from Lebanon’s border area, and Hamieh a deceased Lebanese soldier.
The words are accompanied by the date the position was re-taken – August 21 2017 – and, ‘The first intervention regiment/Third company’ – the troops who achieved it.
Twisted metal wire and an area covered in dirty chequered blankets is stood next to the building, and on the other side: a filthy courtyard containing various debris, including soiled rags, and rusty metal buckets.
Dirty: A rusty stove is stood next to a soiled mattress, with stains of unknown substances
Left behind: Dirty cloths and plastic bottles are strewn across the floor of the concrete hut
Graffiti on the lair’s dirty grey wall reads: ‘Heroes of the Army/Operation Dawn of the Outskirts/ Dedicated to Ghassan Hamieh’
Taking over: Lebanese Army troops has ousted 600 ISIS militants from a 46-square mile area in north-eastern Lebanon
What appears to be a mine or a bomb is buried underneath the gravel outside the hut
This is just one example of the huts, caves and tunnels that Lebanese troops say ISIS fighters used as lodgings. The terrorists spent three years holed up in this patch of barren territory on the Syria-Lebanon border, after its capture in 2014.
This ISIS enclave has been little known outside the Middle East, but its dismantlement comes as the terror group loses ground across the region.
Less than a week before MailOnline’s visit, the lair had been retaken from militants by Lebanese Army troops, who receive multi-million pounds in military aid, training and equipment from the British and US governments.
Lebanese soldiers used US-supplied helicopters, tanks and surface-to-surface missiles to oust 600 ISIS militants from the 46-square mile area in north-eastern Lebanon and have made rapid progress in the past week.
Army troops appeared in high spirits on Monday, waving, flicking ‘V’ signs for victory and posing for passing journalists. They have retaken all but 8-sq miles from IS, with army sources insisting all militants have been killed, or have fled.
‘The area is 100 per cent clean of Daesh’, a senior military source in Beirut told MailOnline. ‘250 were killed during the operation and more than 300 have gone to Syria.’
In the rough and desolate territory, only accessible by armed personnel carrier, desert buggy or 4×4, MailOnline passed encampments that troops said were former IS hideouts, where drugs and enormous weapons stashes had been uncovered.
‘We felt victory when we uncovered ISIS hideouts. We are not scared of them’, a Lebanese army source deployed for the anti-Isis operation in Ras Baalbeck told MailOnline. ‘We were very proud and happy when fighting. We congratulated each other and searched them [the hideouts].’
Soldiers said trucks, whose remains were scattered across the scorched earth, had belonged to the terror group and were destroyed by Lebanese Army airstrikes or artillery rounds.
The terrorists spent three years holed up in this patch of barren territory on the Syria-Lebanon border, after its capture in 2014
This is just one example of the huts, caves and tunnels that Lebanese troops say ISIS fighters used as lodgings
Discovery: A member of the Lebanese Army climbs into a cave where ISIS militants had been hiding out during fighting
Findings: A soldier holds up a blanket used by fighters inside the small cave
The Lebanese Army – which has more than 3,000 troops currently deployed in the area – claimed to have killed at least 250 ISIS militants during the offensive.
The Ras Baalbeck source showed MailOnline graphic images of what appeared to be the mangled bodies of dead ISIS militants.
Their nationalities were unclear, although small amounts of non-European foreign currencies, including Syrian pounds and Iraqi rials, were found with the bodies, according to the source.
Bullets scattered the ground around the building at Lazzab, which Lebanese troops said had been cleared of mines and booby-traps. But journalists were warned from straying from tracks and areas guarded by troops due to the risk of unexploded ordnance.
‘We have found a lot of landmines, of all types, and being used in a very dirty way,’ the source told MailOnline. ‘They [IS] put many anti-personnel mines, connected to a big barrel of explosives. We found them in IS hideouts and along the roads.’
Lebanese troops also uncovered well-stocked weapons stores and drugs as they took back IS positions.
‘We found that Daesh were very well equipped – we found big weapons stores and even what we think were drones’, another senior military source told MailOnline. ‘We found a lot of drugs with them, of multiple types, including captagon’, he continued, referring to an amphetamine popular with ISIS fighters.
Another soldier involved in clearing the terrorists’ positions added: ‘We found a lot of drugs with them, of all types and shapes.’ He suspected that militants were using the drugs to buy weapons and to sustain long periods of activity without sleep.
Force: The Lebanese Army has more than 3,000 troops currently deployed in the area
Heroes: Lebanese Army personnel relaxes sitting on a military vehicle, with one making a ‘v’ for victory sign
Winners: Soldiers hold a Lebanese flag as they pose for a picture in former ISIS territory
Drug usage is forbidden in Islam, and the hypocrisy of the ISIS militants’ apparent storage and use of narcotics was not lost on the Lebanese troops.
‘These guys were simple criminals, and using religion as a weapon to keep people beneath them’, one of the sources said.
The accounts were confirmed by photos released by the Lebanese Army, which showed stashes of weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells.
‘Particularly inside posts, caves and pathways, LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces] units confiscated major amounts of weapons, ammunition, explosives and military equipment…as well as medicine and stimulants’, an army statement said.
ISIS had held the Lebanese territory since 2014, leaving the country in fear of terror attacks like those orchestrated in Brussels, Paris and other European cities. The army and interior security forces have foiled multiple plots against targets in the country over the past three years.
The ‘Dawn of the Outskirts’ operation has widely been viewed as a success in Lebanon, with nationalistic and pro-army sentiment high. The UK, which is currently rolling out an eight-year, £65million military aid programme for the country, has been key in providing training and logistical support in border security operations.
The British Foreign Office warned UK citizens in Lebanon – who include embassy staff, NGO workers and journalists – that there was a heightened threat during the army’s anti-IS operation. ‘Daesh and other extremists may attempt retaliatory attacks throughout Lebanon’, it warned, although to date no major incidents have occurred.
IS militants not killed during the offensive were allowed to pass across the border to Syria, in exchange for information on the whereabouts of nine Lebanese troops kidnapped by IS in 2014. Authorities confirmed that remains were uncovered in a remote valley near the Syrian border, with DNA results expected to confirm the missing soldiers’ identities.
The ‘Dawn of the Outskirts’ operation to retake the ISIS controlled areas of northern Lebanon has widely been viewed as a success in the country
Helping hand: The Lebanese Army has receive multi-million pounds in military aid, training and equipment from the British and US governments
Six other Lebanese troops have been killed during the latest offensive, and have been lauded across the country as martyrs.
Hezbollah militia and the Syrian army allowed the fleeing IS fighters to travel to the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, one of the terror group’s remaining stronghold in its crumbling so-called caliphate.
Lebanese officials had to justify why IS militants were allowed to flee to Syria, where they travelled east on air-conditioned buses, instead of facing justice.
‘The return of Daesh militants in air-conditioned cars to their countries is permissible because Lebanon adheres to the philosophy of a state that does not exact revenge’ said General Security head Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim in a radio interview, according to local English language newspaper The Daily Star.
The Lebanese Army also had to insist repeatedly that its anti-IS operation was not co-ordinated with Hezbollah or the Syrian army, who carried out a simultaneous offensive against militants on the other side of the border.
Washington considers Hezbollah, which has significant influence and support in Lebanon, a terrorist group. Evidence of army co-operation with them would risk the US’s multi-million dollar military aid program for Lebanon.