The online newspaper cited Lebanese daily Arabic-language newspaper As-Safir, which reported that Washington is urging Qatar to include the names of US citizens kidnapped by the Islamic State and other extremist groups in any prisoner exchange with terrorists.
As-Safir said that the "willpower of the state [of Lebanon] also became hostage to blackmail and mismanagement," stressing that the "dispersed" management of hostage release operations is dangerous for the captives.
According to The Daily Star, on Sunday Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam said that negotiations aimed at freeing the 26 Lebanese soldiers and policemen held hostages by the IS and the Nusra Front are handled by the country's intelligence service.
However, Qatar has been mediating the servicemen's release ever since their capture in August, when the jihadists attacked the Lebanese town of Arsal near the Syrian border.
The IS Sunni jihadist group has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it proclaimed a caliphate over the vast areas it seized across Iraq and Syria.
A US-led coalition is currently carrying out attacks against extremists on Iraqi and Syrian territory. The IS has committed many well-documented human rights abuses and is notorious for taking westerners hostage for ransom or for propaganda purposes. In 2014 the group beheaded US reporter James Foley, American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff, UK aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and US-born Muslim convert Peter Kassig.
