Defected Soldier Hands Himself over to Army Intelligence

A soldier who defected the army in October and joined the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front reportedly handed himself over to the Army Intelligence.

The state-run National News Agency reported that Omar Khaled Shamtiyeh turned himself over to the Army Intelligence in North Lebanon.

The reasons remain vague.

Shamtiyeh was a member of the 2nd Artillery Regiment and used to serve at the al-Madfoun checkpoint on the coastal highway in the North.

He accused the military in his defection video of becoming a “subordinate to Hizbullah” and of “killing the Sunni youths without any valid justification.”

Several soldiers had announced their defection in recent months, voicing Shamtiyeh's argument.

In October also Lebanese soldier Abdul Qader Akkoumi, who was killed by the army in an ambush in the town of Assoun in the northern area of Dinniyeh, announced his defection.

Abdullah Shehadeh, who had defected to Nusra on October 10, urged troops to leave the army and “join the jihadists.”

Shehadeh, who hails from the town of Mashha, defected hours after Nusra published a video in which the soldier Mohammed Antar announced that he had "joined the jihadists."

The increasing defection of troops from the army is not expected to affect the military, which comprises around 60,000 soldiers, according to military sources.

The first time a Lebanese soldier defected to the Nusra Front in neighboring Syria was in July. Corporal Atef Mohammed Saadeddine claimed in a video that his move came as a result of the injustice against Sunnis in Lebanon.

Islamists in the country claim that Sunnis are facing harassment by the army, which they accuse of working “under the command” of Hizbullah.

The Shiite party has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to help the regime of President Bashar Assad against the rebels fighting his troops.

Hizbullah members have engaged in bloody gunbattles with al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State group and other Syrian opposition fighters in Syria and at the border region with Lebanon.

The jihadist groups took several Lebanese soldiers and policemen hostage in August and executed three of them following deadly clashes in and around the Bekaa border town of Arsal.