HERMEL, Lebanon: Tension spiked Sunday in east Lebanon as six more residents were kidnapped in the Bekaa Valley in retaliatory hostage-taking by members of the Moqdad family.
Moqdad clan members previously kidnapped 10 people from the northeastern border town of Arsal in retaliation to the kidnapping of Mohammad Moqdad who was taken hostage Thursday.
The six additional people kidnapped now make for 16 hostages held by the Moqdads.
The new kidnappings sparked tension in Bekaa Valley where large numbers of Army units deployed in the area were on alert.
Arsal’s mayor, Ali Hujeiri, said earlier that the kidnapping of Moqdad was sparked by investigations into the June killing of four Shiites in an area called Wadi Rafik.
He claimed that three Arsal residents, Hassan Hussein Rayed, Omar Ahmad al-Atrash and Sami al-Atrash, were allegedly involved, along with several Syrians, in the Wadi Rafik murders.
Omar al-Atrash allegedly carried out Moqdad’s kidnapping “as a reaction to the investigation that revealed his role in many kidnappings and killings,” said Hujeiri.
However, Hujeiri assured that the people of Arsal rejected such crimes and asked the security forces to act quickly to put an end to the incident.
Kidnappings involving families from the Sunni-majority Arsal and the Shiite clans of the northern Bekaa Valley have been on the rise since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.
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04/08/2013
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