REPORT: PSP leader Jumblatt calls for unconditional swap deal over...

4^min

National Struggle Front leader MP Walid Jumblatt visited on Tuesday the families of the kidnapped troops in Beirut’s Riyad al-Solh Square where they have been on a continuous sit-in calling for the release of their loved ones.

MP Jumblatt called for an unconditional swap deal to secure the release of the Arsal captives, noting that he will meet a delegation of the Muslim Scholars Association in the afternoon.

For their part, the captives’ families thanked Jumblatt, saying he pledged to deploy all the needed efforts to hold negotiations in the file.

The families also said the referral of Souja al-Douleimy to the General Security was a positive sign, stressing that they "refuse the detention of any woman."

Souja al-Douleimy, the ex-wife of the Islamic State group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was arrested by the Lebanese authorities on December 02.

“We have been asking, for handing the Arsal captives dossier to the Muslim Scholars Association,” the families added.

Families of the abducted troops have been staging a sit-in in Riad al-Solh Square in order to exert pressure on the politicians to hasten the negotiations to release the hostages kidnapped by militants from the Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front in the border town of Arsal.

In a statement issued Friday night via Twitter, the Nusra Front declared that it had executed Lebanese hostage Ali al-Bazzal, as a response to the arrests carried out by the Lebanese Armed Forces, threatening to murder another captive if the female detainees who were arrested are not released.

In the same regard, the Nusra Front released on Saturday (September 20) a video depicting the execution of the Lebanese soldier Mohammad Hamieh with a bullet to the head. The video also showed Lebanese soldier Ali al-Bazzal pleading his family to act or else he would face execution.

On Saturday (September 06), Turkey's Anatolia news agency quoted a commander of the Islamic State as saying that the group had executed one of the captured Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers for trying to escape.

"LAF soldier Abbas Medlej tried to escape from prison and after he attempted to open fire at IS members, we took control of the situation by slaughtering him," the Islamic State- Qalamoun branch said in a statement.

Also on August 28, the Islamic State posted photos and a video online depicting a militant beheading a blindfolded hostage who was identified as Lebanese Armed Forces Sergeant Ali al-Sayyed.

On Sunday (August 31), Lebanon's military said an al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group released five members of the Lebanese security forces captured earlier in August in a cross-border raid.

The men were taken hostage when militants from Syria took over the Lebanese border town of Arsal for five days before withdrawing toward the Syrian frontier, taking with them Lebanese soldiers and policemen as hostages. The clashes were the most dangerous spillover of violence from the civil war in neighboring Syria.

The clashes flared up when Syrian gunmen deployed across the region after the Lebanese Armed Forces arrested Imad Jomaa at a checkpoint. The detention of Imad Jomaa, the leader of the Fajr al-Islam Brigade, had caused security tension in the border town of Arsal, claiming the lives of 20 soldiers and leaving 86 others injured.

While the release of the five men provided a degree of relief, concerns remain about the troops and policemen still in captivity.

For more details, watch Nada Andraos' report in the video above