Arsal Captives' Families Block Roads, Say Willing to Risk Their Lives in New Protests

The families of the soldiers and policemen taken captive by militants in the northeastern border town of Arsal blocked on Wednesday several roads to pressure the authorities on meeting the demands of the abductors.

The Dahr al-Baidar and Maaser al-Shouf roads that link Beirut and Mount Lebanon with the eastern Bekaa valley were blocked.

The Tarshish-Zahle road was also closed for a short time. The families gathered in the area joined the protesters at the Falougha junction of the Dahr al-Baidar road.

They pledged not to allow vehicles to cross to the other side unless Prime Minister Tammam Salam, who is currently in New York, confirms that the captives will be released.

"The Dahr al-Baidar road is still blocked and the protests are expected to escalate. There might be a move towards Adliyeh (Justice Palace) or Roumieh (prison) tomorrow, but nothing is final," MTV reported in the afternoon.

"Since the state has not given us any attention despite all our escalation, we have decided to continue blocking the Dahr al-Baidar road and we might step up our acts in a manner that could jeopardize our lives," the families in Dahr al-Baidar warned in a joint statement.

"We hold the officials responsible due to their slow response," they said.

Asked whether they would meet the captors in Arsal's outskirts like the wife of one of the soldiers did, a spokesman for the families said "the wife of the soldier Ali al-Bazzal was more honorable than the state in her move."

"We might head to the government's headquarters, Roumieh or Arsal, and everything is possible," he noted.

"We will reopen the roads when our sons are released and we have nothing to lose from now on," the man cautioned.

The soldiers and policemen were kidnapped when jihadists from the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group overran Arsal last month.

They killed three of them and vowed to execute more captives if the authorities failed to meet their demands, which are so far unclear.

A Qatar envoy, a Syrian national who has not been identified, has so far failed to arrive in Beirut, a sign that the negotiations with the captors are not making any progress.

But Salam hopes he would convince Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during talks in New York to play a bigger role in freeing the captives.

“Lebanon will not yield to extortion,” Salam said Tuesday.

He reiterated that the Lebanese government had conditioned at the start of the negotiations to receive pledges from the jihadists that they would not kill more soldiers.