| But they're not a terrorist organization... |
Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned the resistance group would kidnap Israeli troops to swap for Lebanese citizens detained in Israel if current negotiations over their release failed. During a ceremony on Friday to commemorate Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel, Nasrallah said: "If we fail on the issue of negotiations, which must be concluded soon one way or another, then we have a commitment to act, and only one option left before us, the one that has returned our dear brothers in the past."In January 224, Hizbullah and Israel carried out a German-negotiated swap in which hundreds of Lebanese and Arab prisoners were exchanged for a kidnapped Israeli spy and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. Hizbullah kidnapped the soldiers on the Lebanese border with Israel in 2000 to use as collateral with which to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese detainees in its jails. A second stage of talks is expected to focus on the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad, who was downed during a bombing raid over Lebanon in 1986, as well as that of the longest-standing Lebanese detainee in Israeli prisons, Samir Qantar, who has been held for 27 years. Qantar is serving a 542-year prison sentence for killing four Israelis in 1979.