Police and soldiers abducted by jihadi militants from Lebanon's northeastern town of Ersal last month appeared in a video released Friday by their captors urging Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria.
At least nine troops and police officers could be seen in the27-minute long propaganda tape released by the al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front in which the jihadi group accuses Hezbollah of intentionally targeting women and children in Syria.
"If you have nothing to do with Syria, get out. If you want to fight, go to Palestine. If you don't want to fight, stay at home," one of the detained security forces, presumably speaking under intense pressure, said in the video titled "Who will pay?"
Another abductee noted that the attacks on Lebanon, including suicide bombings, only began after Hezbollah intervened in the Syrian war.
Several of prisoners repeated the phrase, "Why do we have to pay for your actions?"
Hezbollah's entrance in the Syrian war last year on the side of the government largely turned the tide in the three-year conflict against the mostly-Islamist militants fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian rebel groups, including Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), reacted to Hezbollah's entrance by unleashing a wave of car bombs, suicide attacks and rockets against neighborhoods in Lebanon viewed as sympathetic to Hezbollah.
Last month jihadi militants abducted over 30 Lebanese police and soldiers, including those featured in the video, during a five-day battle with the army in the northeastern border town of Ersal.
About 28 of them are believed to still be in the militants' custody, including 18 captured by Nusra and 10 by ISIS.
Last week ISIS handed the decapitated body of one of the soldiers it had beheaded back to Lebanese authorities.
The militants have issued several demands in exchange for freeing the remaining captives, including the release of Islamists being held in Lebanese prisons, and for the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from Syria.
(Al-Akhbar)
- ISIS hands over body of beheaded Lebanese soldier
- Lebanon arrests seven suspected militants over Ersal battle
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