Syria militants release video apparently showing Lebanese hostages

Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, has released an online video assailing the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah and showing images of what appear to be Lebanese police officers and soldiers captured last month.

The 27-minute video — titled “Who Will Pay the Price?” — features a group of men apparently among the Lebanese security personnel seized during fierce clashes in the Lebanese town of Arsal, close to the Syrian border.

The men were captured when Al Nusra Front, a Sunni Muslim group, overran Arsal with the aid of other Syrian militant factions, including the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. In the video, the apparent Lebanese security men assail Hezbollah’s involvement in the war in neighboring Syria.

“They killed children, they killed women … they targeted the mosque so as to kill us in it,” says one bespectacled person shown in the video, uploaded to the social networking site YouTube. “Why do you want to fight women and children? Why should we pay the price of your actions, why?”

Hezbollah is a major military and political force in Lebanon. The Shiite group has dispatched fighters to neighboring Syria to fight on the behalf of the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is facing a more than three-year rebellion from mostly Sunni Muslims. Hezbollah officials say they intervened in part to prevent the spread of Al Qaeda-style groups into Lebanon.

About 20 Lebanese security personnel are reported to still be in the hands of militants, who were pushed back from Arsal by the Lebanese army. Last week, the Islamic State beheaded a captive Lebanese soldier, according to another video posted on the Internet.

Al Nusra Front has proposed a prisoner swap for some of its captives. But the Lebanese government has refused to negotiate.

The video ends with a call to Sunnis to abandon the Lebanese army, while other sects are warned to stay away from Hezbollah, that they will be “held accountable for being silent in the face of [Hezbollah’s] crimes and will pay the price.”

Shiites, however, are told that they “will pay the price many times over.”

Bulos is a special correspondent.