Nuns Swap included family of Nusra's top commander

The woman and her 3 children, who had been included in the Nuns swap yesterday, are the family of rebel top commander based in Qalamoun, activists said.

The swap in which Assad’s regime freed 151 female detainees, has included too the family of of top commander in al-Qaeda-linked group Nusra Front, the Iraqi wife, Saja al-Delaimi, was with her children in prison too, activists say. 

The nuns who held by rebels for more than three months have been released following Lebanese-Qatari mediation.

The the Qatari mediators, before receiving the13 nuns, have delivered the family for their father on the Syrian-Lebanese border Sunday night, activists said.

Prominent activist Hadi al-Abdullah said in statement posted online that Nusra Front has rejected to take ransom; just they insisted on releasing 151 Syrian female detainees from Assad's prisons.

The nuns have welcomed the release of female activists, al-Abdulla quoted nuns as saying, "This news is compensating us for being far away from our families as the detainees families are delighted now."

In relevant development, the nuns have sparked outrage amid Bashar al-Assad’s loyalists in their first appeared at press conference held by Syrian media, as they said "we have been treated well by 'al-Jabha' Nusra Front".

“We kept practicing our rituals, everything we asked, had been brought to us, we can not deny,” the nuns’ chief said.

Many Alawite activists have denounced the regime neglecting of their hostages who still under rebels’ control.

“Poor Alawite hostages!! There is no political bargain and no Iranian interest to see them freed,” he added.

The 13 nuns and three maids were kidnapped from the Christian town of Maaloula north of Damascus in December and taken to the nearby Syrian rebel-held town of Yabroud, where they are believed to have been held by al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.

Shortly after the nuns disappeared, rebel fighters said they had taken them as their "guests" and that they would release them soon.

In December, the nuns appeared in a video obtained by Al Jazeera, saying they were in good health, but it was not clear under what conditions the video had been filmed. 

Syria's Christian minority has broadly tried to stay on the sidelines of the three-year-old-conflict, which has killed more than 140,000 people and which has become increasingly sectarian. Zaman Alwasl with agencies