Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate has offered to release three lebanese soldiers in exchange for an ex-wife of the leader of the jihadist Islamic State group and four other female prisoners.
Al-Nusra Front, which along with IS has held 25 lebanese soldiers and policemen hostage for almost a year, issued the offer in a statement aired on lebanon’s MTV television last night.
“If five of our sisters leave prison... We will hand over three soldiers in exchange,” said Abu Malek al-Shami, Al-Nusra’s “emir” in the Syrian region of Qalamun bordering lebanon.
Among the five hostages he named was Saja al-Dulaimi, who was arrested in lebanon in December and is a former wife of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as a wife of an Al-Nusra leader.
Dulaimi’s background is complicated as she reportedly belongs to a tribe that straddles Syria and Iraq and she was said to have been closer to Al-Nusra than her ex-husband’s rival jihadists at the time of her arrest.