Report: Nusra Front Captives to be Released within 10 Days

Servicemen taken hostage by the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front are expected to be released within 10 days after negotiations with the group reached a breakthrough, al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Tuesday.

“Negotiations passed a long way and reached an advanced level,” a concerned source told the daily.

The source revealed that al-Nusra reached a settlement with the Qatari-appointed mediator in coordination with General Security chief Major General Abbas Ibrahim and the crisis cell to release the abductees within a 10-day ultimatum.

“The group will release the hostages in one batch,” the source noted, adding that the Lebanese state will in return free several inmates at Roumieh prison, without revealing the number of the detainees.

On Monday, the families of the captive troops and policemen announced in a statement that they suspended a protest scheduled for Tuesday, “pending Ibrahim's return from Turkey and his meeting with the families.”

Ibrahim has traveled to Ankara on Friday.

The families attributed their decision to the indications that are “leaning towards positivity.”

Concerning the servicemen who were taken captive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the source told al-Mustaqbal that negotiations are frozen.

In August, extremists from ISIL and al-Nusra Front overran the northeastern border town of Arsal where they engaged in brief clashes with the army.

They withdrew from Arsal at the end of the fighting, but kidnapped a number of servicemen.

A few were released, four were executed, while the rest remain held.

The ISIL and al-Nusra Front want to exchange the captives with Islamist prisoners in Lebanon and Syria.

Shortly after Ibrahim returned to Beirut later on Tuesday he met with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh.

The General Security chief briefed Berri on the latest developments regarding the case.

H.K.

G.K.