discard command doing a re-direct

I think you have run into a legitimate problem. You should be able to work around this by removing the fallback host from the http profile and setting it inside the rule during LB_FAILED (if that's an option for you).

when LB_FAILED {
  HTTP::fallback "journal.abc.com"
}

I have created CR59409 to fix this porblem. Please contact support to track the progress of the CR.

Thanks!