Army Supervises Release of Captives Held in Counter Lebanese-Syrian Abductions

The tit-for-tat abductions between the Bekaa town of Brital and the Assal al-Ward town in southern Syria were released in a deal supervised by the Lebanese army intelligence, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

According to the news agency, Lebanese brothers Ali Abbas Ismail and Hassan Abbas Ismail, who hail from Brital, and Syrians Bilal Khallouf and Mohammed Omar from Assal al-Ward and Mohammed Shaddad from the village of al-Nabak were all released.

However, the fate of Syrian national Saleh Boutros, the brother-in-law of Ismail, remains unknown.

The three Syrian nationals were kidnapped on Tuesday in the eastern mountain belt on the border between Lebanon and Syria in retaliation to the abduction of the two Ismail brothers and Boutros.