Ibrahim Says Servicemen Negotiations Advanced after Nasrallah Contacted Qatar's Emir, Assad

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim revealed after the prisoner swap deal with al-Nusra Front on Tuesday that the negotiations had started making progress in October after Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah contacted the emir of Qatar and Syria's president.

“I visited Sayyed Nasrallah in October and he promised me that he would contact the emir of Qatar (Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani) and a week later the case started making rapid progress,” Ibrahim said in an interview on al-Jadeed television.

“Over the past week, Sayyed Nasrallah was daily intervening to address the complications that the deal was running into and he communicated with the emir of Qatar in order to overcome the hurdles,” he added.

Ibrahim also revealed that al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri had visited Qatar's leader after some parties tried to give the file a “sectarian” aspect.

Hariri “stressed his confidence in me to Qatar's emir,” he said.

Nasrallah also contacted Syrian President Bashar Assad after al-Nusra demanded a ceasefire and the release of some detainees from Syrian prisons, Ibrahim announced.

Asked about the obstacles that surfaced in the final hours of the negotiations, Ibrahim said: “In the eleventh hour, al-Nusra raised the issue of terminating the arrest warrants of (Sheikh) Mustafa al-Hujeiri and all fugitives in Arsal but we told them that this would require a long judicial process.”

As for the so-called “safe corridor” that al-Nusra has demanded, Ibrahim reassured that the route would go through the checkpoints of the Lebanese army.

In remarks to al-Manar TV earlier in the day, Ibrahim noted that his meeting with Nasrallah was held on October 8.

“He asked me about the obstacles that were hindering the file and I confirmed to him that al-Nusra Front did not demand to be given control over certain border towns,” Ibrahim said.

He also noted that those released from Lebanese prisons as part of the deal did not include “any convicts or individuals who shed Lebanese blood.”

As for the negotiations with the extremist Islamic State group, which is still holding 9 Lebanese servicemen, Ibrahim said “there are some channels whose seriousness needs to be verified.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Ibrahim thanked Nasrallah, Hariri and the members of the crisis cell.

The 16 hostages – 13 policemen and 3 soldiers -- were freed in a swap deal with al-Nusra that involved the release of more than a dozen Islamist prisoners from Lebanese and Syrian prisons, including the former wife of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Saja al-Dulaimi.

It also gave al-Nusra several trucks of humanitarian aid.

The prisoner exchange comes 16 months after al-Nusra and the IS briefly overran the town of Arsal on Lebanon's eastern border with Syria after clashes with Lebanese troops.

The groups withdrew under a truce deal, but took 30 hostages with them.

Four of the hostages were subsequently executed by the two groups, including Mohammed Hamieh, whose body was turned over to Lebanese authorities on Tuesday morning in the first stage of the deal.

Y.R.