(MENAFN- Arab News) BEIRUT: A French-speaking militant threatened Friday to execute Lebanese soldiers held hostage by the Islamic State group saying three prominent anti-IS Lebanese politicians would be responsible for their deaths.

The threat was made in a video AFP obtained from radical leader Wissam Al-Masri who is mediating the release of 25 police and soldiers held by IS and the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda the Al-Nusra Front.

Four hostages have already been executed.

The video filmed in a field with hills in the background shows three men in blue uniforms each kneeling in front of a fighter holding a knife to his throat.

The unidentified speaker was wearing a hood and his companions' faces were uncovered. From his speech it was not possible to determine if he was from Lebanon where French is widely spoken or a third country.

Thousands of fighters from France and countries in North Africa where French is spoken have flocked to IS ranks.

The speaker attacked the politicians for what he said is their support for Hezbollah whose fighters are aiding Syrian President Bashar Assad in the civil war.

'To the allies of France in Lebanon Hariri Geagea and Jumblatt the Islamic State is at war with Hezbollah which is meddling in the affairs of Muslims in Shams (Syria) and has killed our women and our children' he says.

He was referring to Sunni former Prime Minister Saad Hariri right-wing Christian leader Samir Geagea and Walid Jumblatt chief of the Druze community in Lebanon.