BEIRUT: The Muslim Scholars Committee said Monday it was ready to take the lead in negotiations to release 25 captive servicemen held by Islamist militants, but a source in contact with ISIS and the Nusra Front said that Qatar’s withdrawal would actually undermine any future talks.
Meanwhile, three Lebanese were killed and two others wounded in a Syrian airstrike which targeted a house on the outskirts of Arsal, the National News Agency and media reports said.
The Lebanese Army also pounded militant hideouts in the town’s outskirts and blocked main channels used by militants for access.
Head of the committee Sheikh Salem al-Rafei expressed his association’s readiness to act as mediators on the condition it was formally commissioned by the government and that officials agreed in principle to a swap deal involving the release of Islamist detainees in Roumieh Prison.
“We want to have the government’s permission before making any offer to the gunmen,” he said, after a committee delegation met with Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Rafei said the committee would meet with Prime Minister Tammam Salam this week and that there was “optimism in the atmosphere.”
But a source in contact with the militants in Arsal, who requested anonymity, said Qatar’s withdrawal would further impede negotiations.
“In the absence of Qatar, it [the hostage crisis] cannot be solved, because the country [Qatar] wields great influence over these groups,” the source said, adding that Qatar’s mediation efforts had been fruitless due to “the lack of a decent negotiating partner” from the Lebanese government’s side. “Every figure would tell them [the Qatari-appointed mediator] something different.”
Qatar announced Sunday that it ended its mediation efforts to release the hostages after they hit a dead end.
Rafei denied that Qatar’s absence would work against local mediation efforts, arguing that the main hurdle remained Lebanon’s ambivalent approach toward a swap, which could be resolved without the Gulf country’s help.
Rafei called for the unconditional release of Saja al-Dulaimi, the ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Ola Mithqal al-Oqaily, the wife of a Nusra Front leader, as a show of good will to mitigate militant threats to execute more hostages. The women and their children were apprehended separately last month.
“There is no obvious judicial order to detain them [Dulaimi and Oqaily], but they were arrested to be used as bargaining chips,” Rafei alleged, blasting their detention as unethical and illegal.
Salam denied that the wives were detained to improve Lebanon’s position in the negotiations, telling AFP ahead of a visit to France this week that “they were being followed for some time” because of suspected links to terrorist cells.
Salam said Lebanon required more international support to help combat the threat of Islamist militants.
The families of the captive servicemen being held on the outskirts of the border town of Arsal called earlier Monday on the committee to help negotiate their release, after Qatar ended its mediation with the captors.
A gathering of Salafist sheikhs, the committee was involved in negotiations with the militants shortly after they snatched more than 30 troops and policemen during a five-day battle with the Army in Arsal in August.
In Arsal Monday, the Army imposed a siege on the outskirts of the town by blocking most roads leading to the area, security and local sources said. The military left only two channels open to allow residents to move freely.
Troops have also been pounding the outskirts with heavy artillery.
Also Monday, a bomb planted in an SUV in Arsal wounded a local resident in an apparent personal dispute, an Army source said.
An Army statement said the blast wounded Hasan Ezzeddine, while the source dismissed reports that Hasan and his brother Jihad were wanted militants. The source said the attack was the result of a personal disagreement.
The Army has also closed off several roads connecting the town of Ras Baalbek, north of Arsal, to its outskirts. The roads linking Ras Baalbek to Arsal and Labweh were also closed. – Additional reporting by Edy Semaan
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