Now Lebanon - LBC Two abducted Lebanese pilgrims escape following dispute, August 6 2012

Two of the 11 Lebanese Shiite hostages in Syria’s Aleppo took advantage of a dispute between their captors to escape from their detention, LBC television reported on Saturday.

The report added that a relative of one of the abductees was informed that the dispute happened when the leader of the group, Abu Ibrahim—who had promised to release two of the 11 pilgrims—had back tracked on his decision following a disagreement between Qatar and Turkey.

The relative said that Qatar supported the release of the two abductees while Turkey inisted on all of them being released at once.

LBC television also reported that the hostage-takers had been attacked by either the Free Syrian Army or a another rebel group, adding that the two abductees escaped during the melee.

However, in a phone interview with the television station, a spokesperson for the “Rebels of Syria” denied LBC’s report.

He denied the “various media reports regarding attacks or shelling of the location were the abductees are.”

“The leader of the group in charge of the abductees, Abu Ibrahim, has not been wounded,” the spokesperson said.

In May, 11 Shiite pilgrims were abducted in Syria’s Aleppo while returning from a pilgrimage in Iran. Later in the month, a previously unknown armed group calling itself the "Syrian Revolutionaries—Aleppo Province" said that it was holding the group, while the Free Syrian Army had repeatedly denied its involvement in the abduction.

However, in July, Al-Jazeera television station broadcast a statement released by the abductors in which they announced that they will release two of the abductees and that they will be handed over to their relatives under the supervision of the council of Muslim Ulama in Lebanon and the state of Qatar.

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