Kidnappings tied to Syria threaten Lebanon's fragile peace

Eleven Syrian nationals were kidnapped in Lebanon Thursday in a spree of abductions, raising concern about renewed violence there.

By Ariel Zirulnick,?Staff writer / August 16, 2012

A masked man from a Lebanese Sunni group who blocked a road linked to the Lebanese-Syrian border, checks a Syrian car which carries Syrian passengers, in Masnaa, eastern Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 16. They said their action was in retaliation to the abductions taking place by Shiites in Beirut.

AP

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Middle East Editor

Ariel Zirulnick is the Monitor's Middle East editor, overseeing regional coverage both for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine. She is also a contributor to the international desk's terrorism and security blog.?

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From the outset of the Syrian uprising, there have been warnings that a protracted conflict could undo the region's fragile balance of power, particularly in neighboring Lebanon, where sectarian divides are still strong beneath a veneer of quiet maintained by delicate political arrangements.?

But now, with a slew of tit-for-tat kidnappings and protests, months of harboring rebel fighters in Sunni-dominated border regions, and receiving retaliatory shellfire from the Syrian Army, the conflict is boiling over to Lebanon, too.?Most Shiites in the country back President Bashar al-Assad ? a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam ? while most of Lebanon's Sunnis oppose him.

"This," said?Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, according to Reuters,?"brings us back to the days of the painful war, a page that Lebanese citizens have been trying to turn."

Yesterday the powerful Meqdad clan ? a large, well-armed Shiite family from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley over which the government has minimal control???disclosed that it had kidnapped more than 30 people in the last day in retaliation for what they said was the Free Syrian Army's kidnapping of their family member,?Hassan Selim Meqdad. The FSA believes him to be a member of the Shiite militia and political group, Hezbollah, and accused him of entering Syria with almost 1,500 members of the group, according to The Wall Street Journal.?

Hezbollah and the Meqdad family insist that he is not a member of Hezbollah.?His family says he was in Syria for work, as an employee of a Lebanese bank. The Meqdad family also threatened to continue the kidnappings unless Hassan Selim Meqdad was released, WSJ reports.?

Meanwhile, news of a Syrian government offensive on the northern Syrian city of Azzaz brought Lebanese out onto the streets in protest, blocking the road to the airport. They were demanding the release of 11 Lebanese Shiites kidnapped in Syria months ago, who were being held in a building in Azzaz that was hit by government fire, according to The Wall Street Journal. There were unconfirmed reports that some of the captives were wounded or even killed in the offensive, according to BBC reports.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/eyfVhvQ1r9c/Kidnappings-tied-to-Syria-threaten-Lebanon-s-fragile-peace

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