Iloubnan - Polish Pair's Kidnap in Lebanon: an "accident", consul says - September 1, 2010

BEIRUT - The abduction of two Polish tourists, rescued by the army in eastern Lebanon, was a "normal accident" and the pair is safe, Poland's consul to Beirut said Wednesday.

"It was a normal accident which can happen anywhere," Lech Faszcza told AFP. He said the Lebanese military could not identify precisely where the pair had been abducted Tuesday night but ruled out any political motivation. "The two tourists said they behaved not carefully because they lost their route and had no map, no GPS and so on... and they were not too scared, frankly," he said.

The tourists, both in their early 30s, were frequent travellers and on their first visit to Lebanon on vacation, Faszcza said. The Poles were freed by the army shortly after being kidnapped Tuesday by two members of the influential Jaafar clan in the eastern Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek, a popular tourist attraction that houses Roman ruins.

When the abductors failed to stop their car at a checkpoint, soldiers opened fire, killing one of the kidnappers, identified as Rashid Reda Jaafar in an army statement. The other abductor had fled and was being sought. A relative of the slain abductor said Jaafar was 17 years old. The army confirmed that the tourists were temporarily taken to an army barracks in the Bekaa before being released.

Abductions have been very rare in Lebanon since the kidnappings of Western hostages during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.