Hezbollah military trainer among abducted Lebanese

Ya LIBNAN- May 27, 2012 ⋅

Lebanese sources who are following the case of the 11 abducted Lebanese revealed to Kuwaiti newspaper al Anbaa that one of the Kidnapped Lebanese is a Hezbollah military trainer and is being interrogated over his alleged role in training Syrian president Bashar al Assad security forces . He is reportedly called Abbas Shaaban or Abbas Shoaib.

Ya Libnan could not independently verify the above allegations , even though we are aware that the delay in freeing the hostages was due to interrogation by the abductors .

Former PM Saad Hariri’s plane has been waiting at Hatay Airport in Turkey to pick up the kidnapped Lebanese since last night.

A Free Syrian Army spokesperson said on Saturday that contacts with the rebel group that abducted the Lebanese Shiite pilgrims were interrupted on Friday night.

"Contacts with the rebel group, which is present in Aazaz in Aleppo, have been interrupted since 8 p.m. on Friday,” the FSA spokesperson, Khaled Youssef al-Hammoud, told Al-Jadeed television station.

He added that "the Syrian regime is preventing us from acting in order to resolve this issue… they have shelled the team that we had sent to conduct negotiations with the abductors.”

According to rebel sources the Syrian regime prefers to have at least one of the abducted Lebanese killed in order to completely damage the relations between Hezbollah and the Syrian rebels.

The pilgrims were expected to arrive in Lebanon from Turkey at 8:pm on Friday but logistic reasons and normal routine forced the delay, said Interior Minister Marwan Charbel.

According to other reports the abductors were irritated by the Friday speech of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who called the abduction a "failure” and vowed to continue to support the Syrian regime.

When Nasrallah spoke he was under the impression the Lebanese were freed and already in Turkey.

There has been a lot of speculation and confusion about the fate of the abducted Lebanese. None of the available information could be independently confirmed. Lebanon PM Nagib Mikati who was planning to visit Turkey to thank its leaders for their positive role in the affair had to postpone the trip after finding out that the Lebanese were still in Syria and never entered the Turkish territory.

More confusion

An Nahar reported based on reliable sources that the kidnapped Lebanese did enter Turkey on Friday but they later disappeared.

The daily added that when the Lebanese entered Turkey the Turkish FM contacted former PM Saad Hariri, who immediately ordered the transfer of his private plane from Cyprus to Turkey in order to transport the freed Lebanese to Beirut . At the same time the Turkish PM called his Lebanese counterpart to tell him that the freed Lebanese are already in Turkey.

The mystery continues update

Human rights lawyer and president of the Lebanese Institution for Democracy and Human Rights, Nabil Halabi said that one of the issues that prevented the freeing of the hostages was the demand by some members of the opposition the handover of Abbas Shoaib since he is wanted by the opposition for his alleged role in training Syrian president Bashar al Assad security forces and the Shabiha ( thugs) who are loyal to the regime and have reportedly killed many innocent Syrian protesters .

Halabi confirmed that the abductors are not part of the opposition , they are smugglers who have proved to be useful to the opposition in smuggling arms for them in Syria .