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A10 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 22 april 2017
Delicate bargain frees 26 hostages, including Qatar royals In Syria, first major

QASSIM ZAHRA role as an experienced work closely with the neigh- the abduction. phase of population
transfer concludes
AYA BATRAWY and shrewd facilitator in boring Shiite power Iran. He said Qatari officials were
Associated Press hostage negotiations — this A person involved in the given assurances about the SARAH EL DEEB
BAGHDAD (AP) — After time involving members of negotiations told the AP well-being of the hostages Associated Press
nearly a year and a half in the Gulf Arab state’s ruling that 11 of the captives during negotiations. BEIRUT (AP) — The first
captivity, Qatar on Friday family. were members of Qatar’s Two Iraqi officials— a gov- phase of a troubled popu-
secured the release of 26 It also raised allegations Al Thani ruling family. He ernment and a security lation transfer concluded
hostages, including mem- that the tiny energy-rich also said Qatar paid tens official — also confirmed Friday as thousands of dis-
details of the release to the placed Syrians were evac-
AP. uated out of besieged
The abduction of the Qa- areas and an agreement
tari group drew Iran, Qatar was reached to release
and the Lebanese Shiite hundreds of government
militant group Hezbollah detainees, government
into negotiations, resulting media and rebels said.
in millions of dollars in pay- One of the largest popula-
ments to Sunni and Shiite tion transfers in Syria’s civil
factions, according to Iraqi war had been tied to the
officials and a person in- fate of 26 hostages, includ-
volved in the negotiations. ing members of Qatar’s rul-
They say the talks took ing family, who had been
place in Beirut. held by a Shiite militia in
The negotiator said the Iraq and were released
ongoing evacuation and Friday. Qatar, which is
transfer of thousands of the patron of some Syrian
Syrians from four besieged armed opposition groups,
areas was central to the was a main negotiator of
release of the Qataris. The the deal. Iran, which backs
two pro-government vil- Iraqi and Lebanese militias
lages, Foua and Kfarya,
With the high-rise buildings of downtown Doha in the background, Qatari women and a man en- had been besieged by fighting in Syria, served as
joy walking by the sea, in Doha, Qatar. A Qatari has made a $2 million payment to a Greek shoe rebel fighters and under a the other negotiator.
salesman’s firm in America to help it get “proof of life” and ultimately free ruling family members steady barrage of rockets With the transfer complet-
kidnapped in Iraq. ed Friday, the first phase of
(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) and mortars for years. The the population swap deal
two opposition-held towns,
bers of its ruling family, in nation paid millions of dol- of millions of dollars to Shiite Zabadani and Madaya, in Syria comes to an end.
A total of 8,000 residents
what became possibly the lars to an al-Qaida-linked groups, and to the al-Qai- were under government from the pro-government
region’s most complex and group to facilitate the da-linked Levant Liberation siege for joining the 2011 villages of Foua and Kfarya
sensitive hostage negotia- population transfer in Syria Committee and Ahrar al- uprising against Syrian Presi- — besieged for two years
tion deal in recent years. that led to the hostages’ Sham, which are involved dent Bashar Assad. amid Syria’s bloody civil
Several people with knowl- release in Iraq. in the population transfers The opposition-run Britain- war by anti-government
edge of the talks and a per- Qatar is home to Cent- underway in Syria. Both based Syrian Observatory rebels— and nearly 3,000
son involved in the negotia- com’s regional headquar- groups were part of an for Human Rights, which evacuees from the rebel-
tions said the hostage deal ters and is where the U.S. armed opposition alliance monitors the Syrian con- held Zabadani, Madaya
was linked to one of the has its largest military base that swept through Syria’s flict through a network of and surrounding areas,
largest population transfers in the Middle East. It is also Idlib province, seizing it on-the-ground activists,
in Syria’s six-year-long civil a member of the U.S.-led from government control says the transfer included have left their homes.
war, and was delayed for coalition fighting the Is- in 2015 and laying siege to 800 armed men from both Under the deal, an esti-
several days due to an ex- lamic State group in Iraq two pro-government villag- sides. Rami Abdurrahman, mated 30,000 people will
plosion one week ago that and Syria. The incident was es now being evacuated. who heads the group, told be transferred from their
killed at least 130 people, sparked when the group Speaking on condition of the AP that the population hometowns over 60 days,
most of them children and was kidnapped Dec. 16, anonymity due to the sen- swap in Syria was directly most of them from the
government supporters, 2015 from a desert camp sitivity of the situation, the tied to the issue of the kid- pro-government villages
waiting to be transferred. for falcon hunters in south- negotiator said the Qatari napped Qataris. Abdur- in northern Idlib. It is one
The transfer of thousands of ern Iraq. They had legally group was being held by rahman, citing information Syria’s largest population
Syrian civilians was also tied entered Iraq to hunt inside Iraqi Shiite militia Kata’eb from negotiators he’d spo- transfers, which the op-
to another deal involving Muthanna province, some Hezbollah. The group offi- ken with, said the Qataris position has described as
750 political prisoners to be 370 kilometers (230 miles) cially denies it was behind first proposed bringing the “demographic engineer-
released by the Syrian gov- southeast of the Iraqi capi- the kidnapping and no fate of the hunting group ing,” and the first to involve
ernment. The complexity of tal, Baghdad. Shiite militias other group has publicly into the talks about the be- a reciprocal population
the talks highlights Qatar’s are active in that area and claimed responsibility for sieged four areas in Syria.q swap.q