BEIRUT: ISIS will execute the Lebanese servicemen it is holding captive along the northeastern border of Lebanon in just hours if the government doesn't revoke sentences handed down to Islamist Prisoners in Roumieh Prison, a brother of one of the captives said.
Ibrahim Mgheit, whose brother is being held captive along with 26 other Lebanese soldiers and policemen by the Nusra Front and ISIS in the outskirts of Arsal, told local TV that ISIS had called the families and given a two-hour ultimatum for the government to act.
The hostages’ families burned tires, escalating protests in their sit-in camp erected outside the Grand Serail in Beirut’s downtown district.
ISIS and Nusra Front are still holding 27 hostages that they took during clashes with the Army in the border town of Arsal in August. They have executed three and released seven so far.
The threat from ISIS came after the Judiciary Council issued life sentences with hard labor against five Islamist prisoners in Roumieh, including Saudi prisoners, judicial sources said Monday.
The sentences, which were issued Friday evening, were not divulged publicly. However, the jihadi group was informed of the rulings and first issued threats to kill the servicemen Sunday, the sources said.
The hostages’ families burned tires, escalating protests in their sit-in camp erected outside the government’s Serail in Beirut’s downtown district.
The fate of the hostages is reportedly no longer in the hands of the ISIS militants in Qalamoun where the captives are held but is decided by group’s central command, according to daily Al-Akhbar.
The paper suggested in a report published Monday that “the decision to slaughter” the captives is in the hands of ISIS leader and self-proclaimed “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
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