BEIRUT – The Latest on the Syria conflict (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
Iraq says it has launched airstrikes in neighboring Syria against Islamic State militants.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office says Iraqi fighter jets launched "lethal" airstrikes against the extremists in an area along the border. It says the militants posed a threat to Iraq, without providing further details.
Syrian and Iraqi forces have driven IS from nearly all the territory it once held, but the extremists have maintained a presence in the remote desert areas along the border. Iraq has carried out airstrikes in Syria against the group in the past.
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1:30 p.m.
Syrian state media say hundreds of rebels fighters in a town northeast of Damascus have handed in their weapons and started to leave under an evacuation deal.
Under the agreement, the rebels are allowed to move with their families to opposition-held areas in the country's north, effectively surrendering their turf to Syrian government forces.
The state SANA news agency says the Army of Islam fighters and their families are leaving the town of Dumayr on Thursday. The report says 1,500 rebels and 3,500 of their next of kin are to leave Dumayr for the town of Jarablus, near the Turkish border.
Dumayr is in the Qalamoun mountains, near the eastern Ghouta region which came under full government control last week after a weeks-long offensive and an alleged chemical weapons attack.
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