ISIS handed over the bodies of an army soldier and a civilian to Lebanese authorities Friday, security sources said.
A police source told The Daily Star that the bodies of soldier Ali al-Ali and civilian Younis Mamdouh were received by a General Security officer in the area of Ain al-Shaab, near the northeaster border town of Arsal.
LBCI reported that Ali, from the Bekaa Valley village of Khraibeh, was killed in clashes with ISIS and Nusra Front militants in the northeastern town of Arsal last August.
Mamdouh was from the eastern town of Brital.
Ali’s father told LBCI that General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim had notified him four months ago that efforts were being made to bring the body back.
“We believe that he was killed for the nation’s sake,” the father said.
The TV channel said the negotiations with ISIS resumed three days ago upon the request of Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt.
The talks are being handled by Ibrahim in coordination with army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi, LBCI added, saying that Health Minister Wael Abu Faour had personally taken charge of them through local mediators.
The return of the bodies was a direct result of the talks, LBCI added, and the doors for negotiating the release of the captive servicemen “remained open.”
ISIS and the Nusra Front are still holding 25 Lebanese servicemen captive in their hideouts on the outskirts of Arsal.
The two bodies were moved to the military hospital for DNA tests to verify their identities, the TV channel reported.
The Lebanese army has been fighting the two groups on eastern border with Syria in intermittent clashes since the neighboring conflict erupted four years ago.
