BEIRUT: Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate threatened yesterday to kill Lebanese soldiers it captured in fighting in August unless the army halts operations against Islamist militants in Lebanon’s second city Tripoli. The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said gunmen kidnapped a soldier from his home in the port city, the second seized in northern Lebanon since Saturday.
Al Nusra Front, which has previously executed one captive Lebanese soldier, issued its threat after troops cleared militants from Tripoli’s historic bazaar district Saturday in an operation that left one civilian and a militant dead.
Many of the militants managed to withdraw to the Bab Al Tebbaneh district of the city, a Sunni Islamist stronghold, where troops were engaged in heavy fighting yesterday, a correspondent reported.
The army’s offensive against the militants — who are suspected of having links to Al Nusra — sparked attacks on troops across the Tripoli region that left six dead.
“We warn the Lebanese army against any military escalation targeting Sunnis in Tripoli,” the Al Nusra statement said.
“We call on it to lift its siege and accept a peaceful solution, or else we will be forced in the coming hours to bring closure to the issue of the soldiers we are holding hostage, given that they are prisoners of war.”
The Al Qaeda affiliate initially threatened to start executing its prisoners from 0800 GMT but then issued a second statement extending the deadline to 1200 GMT.
“At that time the execution can still be postponed or cancelled if the army agrees” to our demands, the later statement said. Al Nusra and rival jihadists of the Islamic State group captured some 30 Lebanese soldiers and police in fighting around the eastern town of Arsal, close to the Syrian border, in August.AFP
