Families of abducted Lebanese soldiers: Bazzal's blood won't go to waste

A Lebanese policeman walks past posters showing one of the Lebanese soldiers, who was kidnapped by ISIS militants, carrying his daughter, on a tent occupied by his family outside the government palace in downtown Beirut as they hold a sit-in late on December 5, 2014. AFP / Anwar Amro

Published Sunday, December 14, 2014

The families of the abducted Lebanese soldiers accused Sunday the Lebanese government of neglecting their ordeal and held it responsible for delays in the release of their sons, threatening to escalate their protests and take extreme measures unless authorities step up the effort.

Addressing scores of people who gathered in Riad al-Solh Square in Downtown Beirut in solidarity with the families of the soldiers, Omar Haidar, the spokesperson of the captured soldiers’ follow-up committee, slammed the parliament for extending its mandate yet failing to “bring back the sons of its own institutions to their mothers.”

“We will become [like] Daesh [ISIS] if we have to,” Haidar said, threatening that the families will resort to violence and take matters into their own hands.

It has been a frustrating and painful four months for the families of the estimated 29 soldiers and policemen who were abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and al-Qaeda linked Syria branche al-Nusra Front, during a five-day battle with the army in the northeastern town of Ersal on the border with Syria in August.

The solidarity rally came a week after al-Nusra executed Lebanese policeman Ali Bazzal.

“My son’s blood will not go to waste,” Bazzal’s father vowed Sunday.

Meanwhile, Sabrina Krumba, the wife of abducted soldier Ziad Omar, told the crowd what her husband told her about al-Bazzal’s death when she visited him recently in the outskirts of Ersal.

According to Krumba, when al-Nusra militants came in and took Bazzal to execution, he thought it was nothing more than a bluff.

“Do not have lunch without me, I’m coming back. I come back every time,” he told his fellow captives.

“Our government has left us. It has given us up,” Krumba quoted her husband as saying, explaining that the kidnapped soldiers have lost faith in their government.

“You are not Lebanon, we are Lebanon,” she said, addressing the lawmakers. “We will bring them back if you fail to.”

One Lebanese MP, Naji Gharios, was booed offstage by the crowd who refused to allow him to give his speech.

However, the MP was called back on stage after the families urged the angry crowd to give him a chance.

Gharios blamed the government for Bazzal’s death and condemned it for “disclosing to the public” information about the ongoing negotiations with the extremist groups.

Last week, Qatar halted its bid to broker the release of Lebanese soldiers and policemen captured by Islamist militants during a raid on a Lebanese border town in August, saying its efforts had failed after one of the captives was killed.

Qatar had previously helped mediate the release of hostages held by Nusra.

“Mediation efforts were out of humanitarian reasons, as well as Qatar’s keenness to preserve the lives of innocent people,” the Qatari statement read, adding that Lebanon was the one that had asked for Qatar’s mediation.

The ministry added that Qatar “will not continue its effort due to the failure of these efforts,” and “expressed its regret on the murder of a Lebanese soldier” – the fourth of the captives killed since August.

The SITE intelligence monitoring center said in November that Nusra had proposed to a Qatari negotiator freeing the Lebanese captives in return for the release of Islamist prisoners held in Syria and Lebanon.

Since the abduction, ISIS has beheaded two soldiers, while Nusra executed two.

In November, sources told Al-Akhbar that the fate of the hostages is no longer in the hands of militants in the Qalamoun area, where the soldiers are being held, but in the hands of ISIS leader and self-proclaimed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Al-Akhbar

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