Anger erupted in eastern Lebanon early yesterday after al-Qaeda-linked Syrian extremist group the al-Nusra Front said it had killed a captured Lebanese policeman to avenge the arrest of militants’ wives and children.
An unidentified Sunni man who had been shot dead was found on a road in the mainly Shiite Bekaa Valley region bordering Syria in a suspected act of revenge for the policeman’s murder, while gunmen abducted an unknown number of Sunni residents from the area, security sources said.
Angry residents were blocking roads and set fire to tires in the village of Bazzalieh, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
The village is not far from the border town of Arsal where a former wife and young daughter of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of jihadist group the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, that has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, were detained this week.
The flare-up came after al-Nusra posted a photograph that it said showed the execution of detained Lebanese policeman Ali al-Bazaal, in a statement on its Twitter account picked up by the SITE terrorism watchdog.
Bazaal was one of about 30 Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists in August during fighting in Arsal.
“If the sisters that were unjustly arrested are not released ... the death sentence will be executed against another prisoner we hold,” al-Nusra said.
The group did not identify the women and children it said Lebanon was holding, nor did it say how many were missing.
On Wednesday, Lebanese Minister of the Interior Nouhad Machnouk said authorities were holding the daughter and former wife of the Islamic State chief Baghdadi.
While both the Islamic State and al-Nusra are based in neighboring Syria, they have clashed with Lebanese border forces and with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Last month, a roadside bomb wounded three Lebanese soldiers near Arsal, where in August troops fought a fierce gunbattle with jihadists who crossed the border.
Fighting ended with a truce mediated by clerics, but the jihadists took with them the Lebanese army and police hostages.
At least four have since been executed and Qatari-led efforts to free the rest have so far failed.
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