FNAYDEK, Lebanon (AP) – Thousands of angry mourners on Wednesday buried a Lebanese soldier beheaded by Islamic militants after an emotional funeral march, accusing the government of neglect for failing to negotiate his release.
The furor over the gruesome death of Sgt. Ali Sayid, 29, came as the government races to try free around two dozen more members of the country’s security forces who remain held captive by Syria-based militants, including the extremist Islamic State group.
“He was betrayed by all the politicians, all of them! By parliamentarians and officials, and by the country. He was sold for a cheap price!” Sayid’s uncle, Ahmad Sayid, shouted during the funeral, in a tearful speech carried on Lebanese television.
As he spoke, mourners fired guns in the air, packing the main street of his impoverished northern Lebanese hometown of Fnaydek. They jostled to help to carry the coffin, wrapped in a Lebanese flag. Mourners rocked the coffin side-by-side, a Lebanese tradition that acknowledges the youth of the dead person, as they marched below a large banner of Sayid.
Sayid, a Sunni, went missing as militants from Syria overran the border town of Arsal for several days in August, kidnapping and killing soldiers and police. The incursion was the most serious spillover yet of the neighboring Syrian civil war. The militants included the Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, both of whom are holding captives.