BEIRUT: The Nusra Front is not demanding the release of Islamist prisoners held in Roumieh in exchange for the release of the Lebanese soldiers and policemen it is holding hostage, according to the wife of one of the captive soldiers who met with the militants Monday.
Twenty-five year old Rana Fliti decided to take matters into her own hands after her husband Ali Bazal appeared in a video circulated last Friday pleading for his life.
She lambasted the government’s inability to communicate with his captors. “How could you let it get so out of hand that one of your citizens has to put herself in danger and travel all the way to the outskirts to negotiate on your behalf?” she questioned. “You are a failure,” she said addressing the powers that be.
While the Arsal native refused to give details that could put her husband at risk, Fliti confirmed that she met with three Nusra members on Monday in what she will only describe as “a room” in the outskirts of Arsal.
The Nusra members, whose nationalities she would not divulge, treated her “agreeably,” and listed the three demands they had submitted to the Lebanese government: the establishment of a “humanitarian corridor” which would allow Syrians living in the outskirts of Arsal to enter and exit the town freely; the suspension of crackdowns on Syrian refugees and “the Sunnis of Lebanon;” and the release of those arrested in the wake of the battle of Arsal last month.
“After he finished giving me these demands, I was waiting for him to continue and for him to issue more difficult demands,” Fliti told The Daily Star.
Fliti says she specifically inquired specifically about the release of Islamists from Roumieh, which the Lebanese government has repeatedly said is a sticking point in the negotiations.
The Nusra member, however, told her that the group was not asking for release of any Islamists from the notorious prison, and suggested that such a deal might figure among the demands issued by ISIS, which is also holding several Lebanese security forces captive.
“At that point I felt like a bucket of cold water was thrown at me,” Fliti said. “I thought [the release of Roumieh inmates] was what was stalling negotiations. I thought that was an essential demand.”
Fliti expressed outrage at the Lebanese government which she said had failed to specify the exact demands being issued by Nusra and ISIS respectively.
After a video was released last Friday appearing to show the assassination of a policeman by the Nusra Front and her husband, Ai Bazal pleading for his life, Fliti says she received an ominous WhatsApp message. “The message said that the militants would execute my husband in three days,” she said, declining to identify who sent the message.
On Saturday, she called Prime Minister Tammam Salam, who has met several times with the families of the hostages.
“He tried to calm me down,” Fliti told The Daily Star.
Salam was unable to arrange a meeting with her on Saturday, and by the time his schedule was free on Sunday Fliti said she “was not in the right mental state” to speak with the Prime Minister.
Knowing that her husband was scheduled to be executed on Monday, twenty-five year old Fliti decided to act on her own.
Only willing to express the arrangements for her trip to the outskirts of Arsal in vague terms, Fliti said that she left Arsal in a car on Monday.
“I was struck by fear. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to get there in time, and that by the time I got there either my husband or one of the others would be killed.”
The army has closed a checkpoint connecting the town of Arsal to the vast outskirts. When asked if the army gave her safe passage through the checkpoint, Fliti declined to answer. “I can’t talk about it. I just passed through,” she said.
Fliti says she drove for an hour and a half through the badlands surrounding her hometown, spending the entire car ride in silent prayer.
Finally, Fliti was met by three men at what she describes as a well stocked room. “There was a pot on the stove, they were cooking food,” she said, recalling seeing fresh vegetables, yogurt and cheese. “It seemed as though they had everything they need.
Fliti says she was not searched or patted down and was generally treated with respect. “They told me they had decided to postpone [Bazal’s] killing,” she said. “Maybe they felt sympathy.”
Still, she was told she would not be able to see her husband as he was “far away.”
Her relief at knowing her husband will live another day is tempered with outrage with the government. "With their politics," she added."They have sullied the uniform my husband wears.
“There’s a certain limit to how much a human being can bear, and I think I’ve gone beyond that,” Fliti said. “I’m trying to do the impossible.”
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