Lebanon’s Interior Minister Marwan Charbel dispatched a delegation to Syria’s northern area of Aazaz to meet the abductors of the nine Lebanese Shiite pilgrims kidnapped last year, according to a report.
“The abductors told the delegation that they are requesting the release of Syrian opposition members detained in Lebanese prisons and for the Lebanese government to form an official delegation to visit them and negotiate with them [in exchange for the release of the nine Shiite pilgrims],” sources told Turkish Anadolu news agency on Monday.
They added that the Lebanese abductees are in good health and receiving the appropriate medical care.
“The delegation will go to Aazaz again upon the request of the abductors,” the sources revealed, adding that “there are a lot of positive expectations regarding the issue of the abductees [which will become tangible] as of March 2013.”
Eleven Shiite pilgrims were abducted in Syria’s Aleppo in May while returning from a pilgrimage in Iran.
Later in the month, a previously unknown armed group calling itself the "Syrian Revolutionaries—Aleppo Province" said that it was holding the group, while the Free Syrian Army had repeatedly denied its involvement in the abduction.
Two of the kidnapped pilgrims – Awad Ibrahim and Hussein Ali Omar – were later released.
