FSA Urges Qahwaji to Release 5 of its Members Arrested in Lebanon
The Free Syrian Army urged Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji to release five of its members who were arrested in Lebanon earlier this month, reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.
It said in a letter to Qahwaji: “The General Staff and the military council of the FSA reject the spike in arrests of members of the army.”
It noted the rise in the arrests at checkpoints in Lebanon, explaining that the detainees have been “seeking refuge in Lebanon away from death and being handed over to Syrian authorities or Hizbullah that has announced its support to the regime and is fighting alongside it on Syrian land.”
“Out of our keenness on our brothers in the FSA and knowing full well that you are just as keen, especially since Lebanon has distanced itself from the conflict in Syria, we urge you to help our oppressed people and brothers in the FSA who seek your country to escape the oppressive regime and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” continued the letter.
“We call on you to release them and treat them as refugees,” it said.
The FSA identified the detainees as Yasser Ayrout, Mohammed Ahmed al-Khatib, Ahmed Mohammed Khaled Ismail, and Louay Abdul Rahman Zaino who were arrested on November 16 in the Bekaa town of Chtaura as they were headed to the northern city of Tripoli.
They were running away from ISIL, explained the letter.
A fifth detainee was identified as Captain Mohammed Abdul Karim Nassif, of the military command in Reef Damascus.
He was arrested at a Hizbullah checkpoint on November 26, said the FSA.
The letter was signed by head of the FSA General Staff Brigadier Ahmed Khaled Berri.
Al-Manar television had reported on the November 16 arrest of the four Syrian officials.
Security sources told the station on November 17 that a Syrian terrorist, Yasser al-Ayrouti, and three others were detained in West Bekaa as they were on their way from the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.
The detainees are comprised of two prominent leaders from the FSA, a leader from ISIL and another from the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front.
The army has come under growing attacks across Lebanon by militants who accuse it of colluding with Hizbullah in its intervention in the Syrian conflict on the side of the regime.
The military has been carrying out a major crackdown in several areas across Lebanon, the latest in the Bekaa over the weekend, where it kicked off a major security operation.
M.T.
D.A.
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