Pilgrims' Families Vow to Move Sit-in to New Turkish Airlines Location

The relatives of nine Lebanese pilgrims, who were kidnapped in Syria last year, promised on Thursday to move their protest to the new location of the Turkish Airlines.

The families held another protest near the Turkish Cultural Center and the offices of the Turkish carrier but promised to move their sit-it after the holidays after the company had set up a new headquarters to evade protesters.

Their movement was accompanied by positive developments on the case of the pilgrims who were abducted by armed rebels in May last year on their way home by land from a pilgrimage to Iran.

There were 11 abductees at first but the rebels released two of them in August and September.

Sheikh Abbas Zgheib, who has been tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up the case, hoped that Lebanese officials wouldn't give details on the case “so that things would not go back to the starting point.”

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel stressed later in comments to reporters that the security situation in Lebanon has improved.

Chabel said ahead of a meeting for the Central Security Council that he is following up the case of the 9 men along with General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim.

“We still don't know who is responsible for the kidnapping of the men,” he pointed out.

Charbel said that “the Turks and Qataris are still involved in the matter and exerting efforts to end it.”

On Wednesday, the so-called Northern Storm Brigade issued a statement demanded “the release of the innocent women held in the prisons of the Assad regime.”

Charbel reiterated that he had contacted the pilgrims, who are held in the Aleppo town of Aazaz, and was awaiting a list of detainees to be included in a swap.

He told reporters that Lebanese authorities are “still waiting for the names of the women imprisoned by the Syrian regime.”