Beirut: Unconfirmed reports emerged on Monday that Hezbollah militiamen kidnapped Jabhat Al Nusra Front members and intended to exchange them for several Lebanese military units abducted at the height of the early August battles in and around the Northern Bekaa town of Arsal.

According to the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai, Hezbollah allegedly captured three high-ranking members from the Al Qaida-linked Al Nusra Front in Syria’s Al Qalamun region, where the Lebanese militia has been fighting alongside the Damascus regime of President Bashar Al Assad. The newspaper reported that the party planned to exchange the three militants with Lebanese abductees — originally 13 Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and 15 Internal Security Forces (ISF) policemen — taken at the height of the Battle for Arsal.

Although much of the recent fighting occurred in the predominantly Sunni town, which saw its 40,000 population increase to 150,000 over the span of 2 years on account of Syrian refugees that escaped the ongoing civil war in their country, fierce battles continued unabated throughout the Qalamun region.

Several soldiers and policemen were recently released, the last batch on Saturday evening, as Beirut authorities accelerated their negotiations. Four LAF members — whose names were not previously made public — along with an ISF policeman, returned to their loved ones over the weekend.

There was no news on the fate of the soldier allegedly taken on August 29. It was previously believed that Al Nusra only held three LAF soldiers, two unnamed, though the fact that it released four highlighted intrinsic problems with how Beirut tackled its accountability problem.

Al Rai quoted a Hezbollah operative claiming that “a possible swap operation between [the party] and Al Nusra Front, which holds several Shiite Lebanese soldiers,” should not be excluded. For its part, a Nusra Front statement on Sunday asserted that it was “preparing to wage a battle to liberate Qalamoun from [the Syrian] regime’s control and warned Hezbollah that it would kill the Shiite troops it held if the party’s fighters participated in the battles.”

As of Monday, the following names were available from open sources, divided between the two extremist groups.

Hostages held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil):

LAF Soldiers

Khalid Hassan

Ali Al Sayyed [alleged to have been beheaded on August 29, 2014. No independent confirmation].

Hussain Mahmoud Ammar

Abdul Rahim Mohammad Diab

Ali Zayed Al Masri

Saif Hassan Thebian

Ebrahim Moghayt

Abbas Medlej

Mohammad Yousuf

Ali Haj Hassan [appeared on broadcast video on August 30, 2014 calling on family to pressure Beirut to work for his release]

Hostages held by the Jabhat Al Nusra:

LAF Soldiers

Mohammad Maarouf Hammiyeh

Previously unidentified soldiers

Ebrahim Mustafa Shaaban, [released on August 31, 2014]

Mohammad Omar Qadri, [released on August 31, 2014]

Ahmad Abboud Giyeh, [released on August 31, 2014]

Wael Said Darwish, [released on August 31, 2014]

Mousa Tabbouri, [allegedly executed in early August. No confirmation]

ISF Captives

Salah Al Baradghi, Corporal [released on August 31, 2014]

Ahmad Abbas

Ali Bazzal

Abbas Mshayk

Lame’ Mzahem

Sulaiman Dirani

Mohammad Taleb

Ziad Amr

George Khizaqa

Ehab Al Atrash

Maher Fayyad

Wael Homs

Maymoun Jaber

Pierre Geagea

Rawad Bedrahmein