By Hussein Dakroub
BEIRUT: The release of one of the 11 Lebanese
hostages by their Syrian captors sets the stage for an overall solution for the
crisis of Lebanese kidnap victims in Syria as well as Syrians abducted in
Lebanon, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Sunday.
However, Colonel Riad Asaad, commander of the
rebel Free Syrian Army which kidnapped the 11 Lebanese, ruled out an early
release of the hostages, claiming that most of them are senior Hezbollah
officials.
“The release of the [Lebanese hostages] will
not be as easy as some can imagine, especially since most of them are senior
Hezbollah officials,” Asaad said in an interview, excerpts of which were
carried by Elnashara website. He said that the release of the remaining 10
Lebanese hostages needed “tough negotiations” that should result in the
interest of the Syrian people and their revolution.
Asaad blamed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan
Nasrallah for delaying the release of the Lebanese hostages after he had
refused the kidnappers’ demand that he apologize for his comments in support of
Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“He [Nasrallah] even threatened the Syrian
people and declared war on them. We see him today fighting fiercely on the side
of the regime in order to enable the treacherous regime to defeat the
revolution,” he said.
Charbel, who visited Turkey last week with
Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, chief of General Security, for talks on the case of
the Lebanese captives, struck an upbeat note about a happy end to the hostage
ordeal by as early as next week.
“Next week will witness a happy end to the
crisis of the Lebanese kidnapped in Syria and the Syrians kidnapped in
Lebanon,” Charbel told The Daily Star.
“Next week will be a week of optimism for all
the Lebanese, especially with regard to ending the issue of the Lebanese
kidnapped in Syria and the Syrians held in Lebanon,” he said.
The minister spoke a day after Hussein Ali
Omar was released by the FSA, which kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shiites shortly after
they crossed into Syria from Turkey on May 22 on their way back to Lebanon from
a pilgrimage to Iran. The rebel group said that Omar’s release came in response
to a request by the head of the Committee of Muslim Scholars in Lebanon Sheikh
Hasan Qaterji. The committee has been involved in efforts to win the release of
the Lebanese hostages in Syria.
Charbel said he had information that made him
optimistic about a solution to the problem of the abducted Lebanese in Syria as
well as the Syrians held by the Lebanese Shiite Meqdad clan and another Shiite
group for use as a bargaining chip to secure the release of remaining 10
Lebanese hostages and a member of the Meqdad family. He declined to disclose
this information.“The release of Hussein Omar is the beginning of a solution
for the kidnapped Lebanese crisis,” Charbel said.
Omar, 60, crossed into Turkey after his
release Saturday from a military camp in the Aleppo district of Azaz on the
Syrian-Turkish border.
He arrived aboard a private Turkish jet at
Beirut airport where he received a hero’s welcome by relatives and government
officials, including Charbel and Hezbollah and Amal lawmakers.
Dressed in a white shirt and a red tie bearing
an image of the Turkish flag that he said he was wearing “in recognition of
Turkey’s efforts to free me,” Omar added that the 10 remaining Lebanese
hostages were well and in good health, refuting earlier media reports that four
of the hostages were killed in a Syrian airstrike on Azaz.
“Our treatment [by Syrian captors] was
excellent. They provided us with food, water and even medicine when anyone of
us fell ill,” a smiling Omar told reporters at Beirut airport. “I wasn’t
kidnapped and was not a captive; I was a guest of the rebels,” Omar told
Al-Jazeera satellite channel upon his release.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri phoned Omar
Saturday night and congratulated him on his return home and said he hoped for
the rapid release of the remaining Lebanese hostages in Syria. Hariri was
reported to have made contacts with Turkish authorities aimed at securing the
release of the Lebanese hostages.
Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar, who was among the
crowd that welcomed Omar at Beirut airport, expressed hope that the former
hostage’s release would pave the way for the return of the other hostages.
“I hope that the release of Hajj Hussein Omar
is a positive signal for the release of all abducted Lebanese,” Ammar told
reporters after visiting Omar at his house in Hay al-Sellom in Beirut’s
southern suburbs.
He also condemned the tit-for-tat kidnappings
and the involvement of “innocent civilians in regional conflicts,” and urged
everyone to put in efforts to secure the release of every Lebanese held in
Syria.
Hours after Omar’s release, the armed Meqdad
clan, which has kidnapped over 20 Syrians and a Turkish national in retaliation
for the abduction of their relative by Syrian rebels, also released six
Syrians, saying the remaining four hostages were linked to the FSA. The clan
released some 20 Syrians last week.
Another four Syrians were released Saturday by
the Shiite group Al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, which abducted 10 Syrians earlier this
month in order to press its demand for the release of Lebanese hostages.
Omar’s release came 10 days after the Meqdad
clan kidnapped a Turkish businessman identified as Aydin Tufan Tekin, 28, and
more than 20 Syrians to force Syrian rebels to release a family member, Hasan
Meqdad, whom the rebels abducted near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and accused
of being a member of Hezbollah. Hezbollah has denied Meqdad was a party member
as did the Meqdad clan.
Another Turkish national, identified as
Abdulbasit Arslan, 56, was kidnapped by a Shiite group to press for the release
of the Lebanese hostages in Syria.
Maher Meqdad, a spokesman for the Meqdad clan,
also voiced optimism about an early solution to the Lebanese hostage crisis. He
said Omar’s release was “a positive signal” for ending the hostage ordeal.
“I am optimistic like the interior minister
over a solution to the hostage crisis. I think the issue of the kidnapped
Lebanese will come to a happy end next week,” Meqdad told The Daily Star. He
stressed that Turkey held the key to a solution to the case of the Lebanese
hostages in Syria.
“Turkey is the gate and lung through which the
Free Syrian Army breathes,” Meqdad said. He added that the Meqdad clan had
initially kidnapped 45 Syrians and later released all but four, in addition to
“a Turkish businessman,” to press for the release of Hasan Meqdad.
He said that two of the four Syrians belonged
to the FSA and the other two had links to “revolutionary committees.”
“The four Syrians and the Turkish businessman
will be released only after the release of Hasan Meqdad,” Maher Meqdad said. He
added that had it not been for the kidnapping of the Turkish businessman, “we
would not have seen this flurry of activity to secure the release of Lebanese
hostages in Syria.”
Meanwhile, Charbel said the kidnapping of a
Kuwaiti national in east Lebanon was not politically motivated, and that the
security forces and Army intelligence were working relentlessly to secure his
release.
“Preliminary investigations indicate no
political reasons” behind the kidnapping of the Kuwaiti citizen, Charbel told
An-Nahar newspaper.
Issam al-Houty was kidnapped by gunmen in
Hawsh al-Ghanam in the eastern Bekaa region outside his house Saturday. Reports
said his wife informed the Kuwaiti Embassy of the abduction.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called for the
immediate release of Houty, saying that Kuwait has always stood Lebanon’s side
under all circumstances. He held a series of contacts to secure Houty’s
release, the state-run National News Agency said. “The least that should be
done is to immediately release the kidnapped Kuwaiti along with a deep
apology,” Berri added in a statement.
Kuwait’s ambassador to Lebanon told the
Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa that no party had claimed responsibility for the
kidnapping yet, denying rumors that a $500,000 ransom had been demanded in
exchange of Houty.
However, Charbel told Al-Jadeed TV Sunday that
one suspect in the Kuwaiti’s abduction had been arrested, and that the search
for a second was ongoing.
Following a spate of
kidnappings of Syrian and Turkish nationals along with threats by local groups
to target Gulf citizens in tit-for-tat abductions, Kuwait and other Gulf
countries issued travel advisories asking their citizens to avoid travel to
Lebanon. Kuwait has also said that most of its citizens have been evacuated.http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Aug-27/185787-charbel-confident-on-early-solution-to-hostage-crisis-after-releases.ashx#axzz24lZrSlqk
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