Lebanon’s General Security chief General Abbas Ibrahim said in remarks published Wednesday that there were no Lebanese detainees held in Syrian prisons.
“They [Syrian authorities] said they had no [Lebanese] missing [in Syria],” Ibrahim told Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa.
Thousands of Lebanese nationals were kidnapped during the country’s bloody civil war between 1975 to 1990, with rights groups documenting that many of them were “forcibly disappeared” into Syrian jails, where some might still be alive.
Regarding the situation in the neighboring country, Ibrahim also voiced his fear that the Syrian crisis might become “Lebanonized.”
“The civil war in Lebanon lasted for around 30 years, and it could last longer in Syria,” Ibrahim said.
“The Syrian crisis might cause strife in Lebanon and Iraq and affect the situation in Jordan as well,” the top security official added.
The Syrian crisis has split Lebanon’s political scene between pro-Syrian regime parties affiliated with the March 8 alliance – spearheaded by Hezbollah – and parties associated with the March 14 coalition, who back the rebels.
