Ibrahim to Head to Qatar to Address Case of Kidnapped Maalula Nuns
General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim is scheduled to travel to Qatar in order to tackle the case of the nuns who were kidnapped in Syria's Maalula region earlier this week, reported LBCI television.
He told the station that he was tasked by President Michel Suleiman to address the case in the Arab Gulf state.
LBCI added that he had contacted al-Jazeera television earlier on Saturday to inquire about the source of the videotape of the nuns it had aired on Friday.
Jihadists and opposition fighters on Monday entered the Syrian Christian town of Maalula and took 12 Lebanese and Syrian Greek Orthodox nuns from the Mar Takla Monastery to the Yabrud area in Qalamoun, near Damascus. The Vatican slammed the move as an “abduction.”
The 12 nuns join two bishops and a priest who are already believed to be held by hardline rebels, deepening concerns that extremists in the opposition's ranks are targeting Christians.
A group of the abducted nuns reportedly appeared Friday in a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera, in which they reassured that they are in good health and would be released “in two days.”
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