Lebanese Pilgrims Say Captors Tormented them with Lies
Lebanese ex-hostage Ali Termos says his Syrian rebel captors moved him 13 times during his 17-month ordeal, constantly stringing him along with the lie that freedom was hours away.
"My nerves were wrecked. I counted that we were moved 13 times, maybe more," he said in his living room, hours after his release and return home late Saturday via Turkey.
"They told us we would be freed 100 times. But they were lying, they would move us and then there was no release. It tormented our morale," he told Agence France Presse.
Termos was among 11 Shiite men abducted by rebel fighters in northern Syria in May 2012 as they were returning from a pilgrimage to a sacred site in Iran along with female relatives.
They had traveled by bus through Turkey and were heading home when rebels fighting to oust the Syrian regime seized them just a short distance away from the border crossing into Lebanon.
The gunmen ordered all 11 male pilgrims off the buses but let the women continue on their journey. Two men were subsequently freed.
The nine others returned home at the weekend thanks to a deal mediated by Qatar and Turkey, which also led to the freedom of two Turkish pilots who had been seized in Beirut in August in a tit-for-tat abduction.
Back home in Beirut's southern suburbs, a bastion of Hizbullah, Ali is surrounded by his wife, his three children and a sea of well-wishers.
They have come in waves to congratulate him on his safe return from Syria, flooding his house all day on Sunday.
The house is decked in yellow balloons and relatives offer coffee and platters of sticky-sweet cakes to express their gratitude for such compassion and Termos' return.
Termos recalled how they were moved to various rebel positions near the Turkish border, including a tent under scorching heat and a room with bare essentials.
The men only had the clothes on their backs which they washed and put out to dry, he said.
"For a while they brought us ready-made food, but the rest of the time they brought us foodstuff and we had to cook. Sometimes we had to cook in a bathroom.
"One of our captors asked me 'What will you say about us after you are released?' I did not answer.
"What can I say about someone who abducted me and deprived me of my wife and my children? That he was feeding me?"
Ali Abbas had harsher words for his captors.
"They are not Sunnis, or Shiites, or Christians or humans either," said the young man who also returned home on Saturday after 17 months in captivity.
Well-wishers have also thronged his family home and his parents are greeting them and offering juice and cake to mark the occasion. Flowers and multi-colored balloons festooned the house.
"You know psychological and moral abuse and undermining people's dignity is worse than physical abuse," he said.
"Our worst fear was fear itself," Abbas added.
"Eleven of the sites they took us to were totally destroyed in bombardment and blasts and many times we thought the would kill us," he added.
But both Termos and Abbas said they were not beaten or tortured by their captors.
Abbas said their fate changed on Thursday when their captors forced them to don bags over their heads and drove them to an unknown destination.
They were taken into a room where a man awaited them, saying "'You are safe inside Turkish territory,'" said Abbas.
"It was a wonderful moment. I cannot describe it, but those words changed everything."
Lebanese officials have said the men were freed on Friday and taken to Turkey the following day before their return to Lebanon.
21 October 2013, 08:50
48
Here is what is bothering me. I feel sympathy for these men for being deprived from their families and being taken hostage but at the same time i don't understand how they can support bashar and his regime when they have taken 100000 times more hostages, kept them for a much longer time, tortured them and killed a huge number not only during the uprising in syria but ever since the baath came to power. Likewise, how can they support hezballah when it is in syria fighting to keep a tyrant system in place? It doesn't make any sence. This is a moment for the freed hostages to see things more clearly, instead they chose to look at it through primitive secterian eyes and not thrue the eyes of justice, the eyes of humanity or the eyes of islam. And for what? To get 15 minutes of divine fame on al manar tv? Complaining about being tortured with lies while at the same time supporting those who torture with every torture method there is, only subhumans do that!!
21 October 2013, 11:07
812
And i dont understand how you can support religious extremists who behead people over trivial matters, enforce the most humiliating, de-humanizing, rules on people and especially women, and are absolutely intolerant towards other belief systems.
That being said, just as those who support Assad have the right to their opinion, you also have the right to yours, unlike you i wouldnt condone your kidnapping just because you are a supporter of the takfiri
21 October 2013, 11:19
811
this is where you are wrong, i never condoned the abduction of the turkish pilots. +1 for trying anyway.
21 October 2013, 11:37
126
I think your talking about the ASSad _ mowaten. what you say doesn't make sense.
Oh and the 200 woman the butcher of Damascus says he will free for these 9 pilgrims (the main reason the pilgrims were abducted in the first place by the some rebels!!!). Why have they not been released as agreed to???... We'll see the lies of the Hizbshitan and the ASSad in the next few days with regard to those poor woman under the tyrants hands... I hope they really release them... AND Isn't IT AMAZING HOW ALL MEDIA IS UNDER REPORTING THEIR CASE!!!
And you talk about beheading I talk about Hizbshitan and the ASSad's raping or burying a man alive or dragging civilian men from the back of a pickup truck and then gunning them down... Or these poor little girls that were slaughtered in their own house by the tyrants in the first winter of the war ... I'll Never forget....You HYPOCRITE _mowaten and Shia-(definition-the sect that was corrupted by the Jews)
21 October 2013, 12:26
610
what a load of bollocks. when they kidnapped the pilgrims they tried to use them to pressure Nasrallah, remember they asked him to present apologies and whatnot? The only reason they released them now is they saw they werent going to get anything like this and it was only harming their image.
Also a good way for qatar to whitewash their financing of terrorism, now they can claim they gave the 150 millions for "humanitarian" reasons.
What deals were made with Assad about the women prisoners i do not know and do not care.
21 October 2013, 12:26
610
oh and about your sectarian talk about jews and shias and whatever: go suck on a toe.
21 October 2013, 16:26
16
i didnt "avoid" discussing it, i said i don't know about the deal between assad and the rebels and i don't care.
also you say "whom you know are being subjected to all kind of humiliating psychological & physical torture"
sorry but no, i can't say i know that. you may think you do, but in fact you're just assuming out of bias. you want to believe assad is a monster so you will believe any accusation against him that comforts your beliefs.
you dont even know if they are political prisoners or common criminals (yes, breaking news, women can also commit crimes!)
but again, why do you care? you guys keep pretending you dont want to get involved in syrian affairs, yet the rebel-assad deal doesnt concern us but you insist on discussing it here?
21 October 2013, 16:33
16
oh and i forgot to answer this:
"you find yourself defending a regime who torture & kill his own people, just because he is from your sect, or because he is fighting Takfiris"
that's nonsense and you know it. especially the "because he is from your own sect" part. we've had this discussion many times and you should know i'm an atheist, so this is total bad faith from your side.
the reason i prefer assad to the fanatics is because if they win they would export their nightmare of a backward social model to lebanon, and i'm not ready to accept that, under any circumstance.
the kurds are defending themselves against the takfiri persecutions, my heart is with them and it seems they are getting support from the syrian government. but they are neither interested not capable of protecting lebanon, their fight will be limited to their geographical area.
21 October 2013, 16:34
16
as for the FSA muppets/puppets, i'm having a good laugh when i see them getting knocked out by the takfiris. they were very happy at first to have this "ally" against assad, they justified and supported terrorist attacks and atrocities, but now it blew back in their face, mainly because the takfiris realized they were much stronger than the FSA and didnt need them anymore. so screw them, if you play with fire you're bound to get burned. they played, now let them burn.
21 October 2013, 17:07
70
"the reason i prefer assad to the fanatics is because if they win they would export their nightmare of a backward social model to lebanon, and i'm not ready to accept that, under any circumstance. "
sure mowaten prefers that lebanon still remains under the orders of the baath regime... and under the "lifestyle" of hezbollah who made dahiye look like iran importing their habits and totalitarism! sure two better models of society you are defending! LOL
and who told you that the takfiris would export their model into lebanon? have saudis,qataris and so on exported their lifestyle here? lol
only pure M8 assumptions to scare the crowds and make them accept to remain under hezbi and baath rules!
good soldier you are is spreading M8 lies....
21 October 2013, 17:15
16
"Mowaten
I said "you should know that the women are being subjected to all kind of torture by Assad regime" based on the fact of you being a Lebanese you should know how he treated the Lebanese prisoner. "
sorry, but that is not what you said. you can't misquote yourself and get away with it when your comment is still up there. if you're going to put anything between quotation marks it should be exactly the same. just saying.
21 October 2013, 17:16
15
now about torture, yes they did use torture in a, and it is bad. i would never condone that, but what do you want me to do about it? i also know the lebanese forces used torture, what do you suggest i do? and the ISF does it on a regular basis, i know kids who were tortured for days and days over a hashish cigarette. what do we do about it? heck even the self-righteous US of A use torture in bagram, abou ghraib, camp x-ray, and many other secret prisons all around the globe. what are you doing about it? we can't single out the syrian mukhabarat and forget about all the others, including our own. that would be hypocrisy.
also, i repeat, in the case of the said women we do NOT know anything, you can say it is -likely- that they have been tortured, i couldnt deny the possibility of it, but saying you "know" it is a lie.
21 October 2013, 17:23
16
anonmye are you kidding me? the FSA announced from the start that they intended to cut the relations with hezbollah if they got to power. they also said this while asking israel to give them weapons. and you want hezbollah to support them? ROFL
man even in your wettest dreams HA wouldnt support the FSA. it's a foreign fabrication, funded and armed by foreign powers who have all but the syrians' interest at heart.
many are former officers who took bribes to defect, knowing very well where the money was coming from, and what it would do to their country, but they didnt care. greedy sons of dogs.
21 October 2013, 11:58
55
Mowaten, i don't support extremists who behead people over tribal matters. They belong in hell. I often curse them and the hezb in the same sentence actually. What a silly accusation. If i had supported those who do that then i wouldnt have felt sympathy over these men for being taken hostage. You accuse me of supporting the takfiri for absolutely no valid reason. How low of you to accuse people of such nonsence for no reason at all. You on the other hand support the hezb takfiris and that is a fact. Whats a takfiri according to you? Are you aware of the fact that hezballah consider you and other atheists (as well as the rest who dont believe Ali and his progeny to be divinly-appointed imams) to be kuffar? So whats a takfiri according to you?
21 October 2013, 13:56
69
well it's your right not to like hezbollah or to be against it, but it is not your right to make false accusations.
HA are in no way "takfiris" because they never attacked anyone on basis of religion, never killed anyone for his beliefs. Anyone with a minimum of decency and honesty knows it.
21 October 2013, 14:49
30
Its ok for you to make accusations that are untrue but its not ok for me to state the obvious? You knew nothing about me yet you accused me of supporting those i hate, that speaks a lot of what kind of person you are. I dont need your permission to hate the hezb takfiris. Indeed hezballah consider you to be a kafir, whether they attack you or not, that still makes them takfiri in the real sence of the word. Going to syria to fight for other takfiris, the secular baathists who considers anyone against them a kafir prooves beyond any doubt that hezb is evil. They know very well how many who have been slaughtered by the bashar regime and how many who have been tortured and raped, yet they chose to support them. That makes them as filthy and criminal as other takfiris. And at the end of the day, you are nothing more than a useful infidel to the hezb. Nothing else.
21 October 2013, 15:30
60
now that hezbollah is officially recognized as an international terrorist organization, anyone dealing with them is an terrorist associate and must be held accountable.
21 October 2013, 16:30
70
"HA are in no way "takfiris" because they never attacked anyone on basis of religion, never killed anyone for his beliefs. Anyone with a minimum of decency and honesty knows it."
seems you never lived in dahiye when hezbollah was born, and the way they imposed their party by coercion...lol!
seems you don't know how they hate sunnis because they are "impure"...
seems you know nothing in fact LOL!
21 October 2013, 17:31
06
smarty: lol you're a pathetic subservient pawn. the US and europe issued a memo saying HA was terrorist, so we have to follow them? please tell me more about your conception of sovereignty and independence.
peace: hahaha yea, you lived in dahiyeh then, i'm sure. you also were the only one there, obviously, because you're the only one who saw that.
21 October 2013, 17:37
60
i know dahiye better than you will ever know it... but i won't try to convince you as you only see what you want that fits your lalaland of yours...
21 October 2013, 17:39
15
you wont try to convince me because you know you can't without factual back to your claims, and you dont have that, so you just rant & run.
21 October 2013, 17:44
60
wahahaha! factual backups? LOL anything i would feed you with you d say it is fabricated... that is what obtuse minds always say.
so i won't bother with what you think as far as i know what i saw and heard...
if you had lived in dahiye at the time you would have known what your hezbi friends were capable of doing to coerce people and STILL are doing...
but if you prefer elmanar as an objective source then so be it! LOL
21 October 2013, 18:28
14
eh please dont bother, save your precious energy for useless posts.
but just wondering, how do you know what my reactions to facts would be? you NEVER gave any.
21 October 2013, 18:33
60
sure i never gave any... seems you need to have a memory check up alzheimer baby boy...
take your barbie doll and go play with those your age ok?
21 October 2013, 18:42
15
hahaha man you're a shameless liar. i feel sorry for you, must be really sad being you.
21 October 2013, 19:02
60
the very fact that you cannot accept any criticism towards hezbollah proves how fanatic you are. as soon as one criticizes your idols you are here desperatly tempting to defend them with arrogance, haughtiness and anger. even if facts deny your lies you keep lowering yourself....
the principal characteristic of a fanatic is that he is blind to everything and will always label the others as liars...
PS: each time i brought you facts or web links you always denied their veracity and said either they are fabricated or "zionists" LOL so i see one big liar and it is you...
get a checkup for the memory loss of yours it is affecting the few neurones you have left.... you are just to pity...
21 October 2013, 19:30
15
because i dont accept YOUR stupid criticism and false accusation doesnt mean i dont accept ANY criticism of HA. if you were smart you'd come up with relevant points and i would agree with you. i think HA has several drawbacks, but all in all they remain by far the most respectable, moral, and patriotic lebanese organization.
21 October 2013, 20:36
50
"respectable, moral, and patriotic lebanese organization."
see how fanatic you are? LOL
how can one respect a party that does not abide by the state's rules? ie: intervenes directly in syria despite the gvt's and the president's decisions, drags lebanon into war without referring to the state... and so on...
how can a party that pledged allegiance to a foreign country (if you know what to pledge allegiance mean of course!) be patriotic?
how can a party that is involved in drug deals be respectable?
and many many other facts are here to prove you wrong ....
21 October 2013, 10:39
107
They should have tormented those thugs even more! They're not worth a penny paid to free them! No more than the 200 Ashraf el Nass still rotting in the Baath regime prisons , and tortured daily !
21 October 2013, 12:28
611
Filthy FSA-Al Qaeda terrorists deserve the exact same pain they inflicted upon others.
21 October 2013, 13:57
59
lol, you really are a retard. if i say thanks to X and Y, does it means that X=Y? stupid logic.
21 October 2013, 16:06
70
Check yourself out in the mirror... with that comment of yours.
And Hizbshitan is super sectarian in nature... Please don't try to convince me other wise you brain washed retard.
