9 Kidnapped Troops Appear in New Video as Muslim Scholars Say 'Can't Confirm or Deny' Reports of Sergeant's Beheading
The Muslim Scholars Committee, who was tasked with negotiating with jihadist fighters on the case of troops abducted during the Arsal clashes on the border with Syria, could not deny or confirm on Friday reports about the slaughtering of an army sergeant who hails from the northern Akkar town of Fneideq.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State-linked Fajr al-Islam Brigade aired late on Friday a videotape featuring several kidnapped army troops calling on their parents to block roads and pressure the cabinet to release them in exchange for Islamist inmates held in Roumieh.
"Otherwise, we will be slaughtered,” they warned.
Two of the troops also remarked that their execution will take place in three days if the demands of their abductors were not met.
The army troops who appeared in the video are soldier Hussein Mahmoud Ammar who hails from Fneideq, soldier Mohammed Hussein Youssef from the Mloukha town of the Western Bekaa, corporal Mustafa Wehbe from the Bekaa town of al-Labweh, adjutant Ibrahim Mughait from al-Qalamun town of the northern city of Tripoli, corporal Ali al-Masri, soldier Seif Hassan Thebian from Mazraat al-Shouf, soldier Abbas Medlej from the village of Miqneh in the Bekaa, Khaled Hassan from Fneideq, and soldier Abdul Rahim Diab from the Bekaa town of Bar Elias.
Earlier in the day, the Muslim Scholars Committee said in a statement that it cannot confirm or deny anything about “circulated images of a Lebanese soldier being executed.”
The statement explained that its uncertain stance in this regard stems from the “the suspension of negotiations with the jihadist fighters and the lack of direct communication with the kidnappers.”
"We urge media outlets not to adopt any reports except those issued by the Committee and published on its official webpage,” the Muslim Scholars Committee stressed.
But the father of Ali al-Sayyed, the army member who is reportedly featured in the video, told LBCI television that the Committee has confirmed the sergeant's death.
We blame the army leadership and the cabinet, he added.
The sergeant's uncle also confirmed to al-Jadeed television the death of his nephew, assuring that al-Sayyed is the person featured in images circulated on social media platforms.
"We have been reaching out to concerned authorities for a month to solve the issue of the kidnapped soldiers, although kidnappers had sent a videotape to the cabinet for the sake of negotiations and in which al-Sayyed appears, but nothing happened,” he expressed.
"We wonder why the government did not negotiate with the abductors,” he said.
"All countries get involved in talks to free their captives,” he noted.
Prominent figures in Fneideq demanded the cabinet and the Army Command “to work seriously to deny or confirm whether the circulated images are reliable to update al-Sayyed's parents on the situation of their son.”
"We hold the cabinet fully responsible for the neglect in the case of the abducted troops and for not respecting the dignity of their parents,” they declared.
On Thursday, an alleged Islamic State militant calling himself Abu Musaab Hafid al-Baghdadi posted pictures on his Twitter account that show him cutting off the head of a blindfolded man with a medium beard.
He identifies the supposed victim as “Ali al-Sayyed, an apostate soldier belonging to the 'army of the cross' (Lebanese army).”
The militant says the purported execution is in response to “the attempts of the 'party of Satan' (Hizbullah) to torpedo the negotiations” over the captive Lebanese soldiers and policemen who were abducted after jihadists overran the Bekaa border town of Arsal on August 2.
The unconfirmed reports of al-Sayyed's beheading sparked protests and road blocking in Akkar on Thursday.
And on Friday morning, protesters continued to block roads in Akkar and the Akkar plains with burned tires to protest the reports.
Jihadists from the IS and the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front kidnapped 36 army troops and Internal Security Forces members and took them to Arsal's outskirts as they withdrew from the town following several days of deadly clashes that started on August 2.
Al-Nusra for its part posted a video featuring eight ISF members and an army soldier as the fate of the other security personnel remained unclear.
S.D.B.
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