By
Rakan al-Fakih
HERMEL,
Lebanon: Lebanon’s northeastern border with Syria in the area of Masharih
al-Qaa and border villages in the Hermel region are fast becoming the scene of
a confrontation between Lebanese supporters and opponents of the regime in
Syria.
Members
of a Lebanese clan are holding 13 Syrian men hostage in an attempt to swap them
for two fellow citizens kidnapped by the Syrian opposition, Lebanese security
sources said Friday.
The
sources said Khodr Jaafar and Abdullah Zein, both Lebanese, were kidnapped
Thursday in the Syrian town of Zeita, 15 kilometers north of Hermel, by Syrian
opposition members who belong to an Arab tribe. Jaafar had been visiting Zein,
who resides in Zeita, when the abduction took place. Hours later and in
response to the kidnapping, relatives of Jaafar abducted 13 Syrian men from
Hermel and Zeita in an attempt to swap them for Khodr and Zein, the sources
said. They said the majority of the Syrian hostages were workers employed in
Hermel.
Zeita
is a small border town of mainly Lebanese inhabitants that lies inside Syrian
territory.
Security
sources said the two Lebanese were kidnapped after the Syrian opposition
accused them of facilitating the arrest of a fellow rebel by Syrian
intelligence agents. The kidnappings were the latest in a series of incidents
along the increasingly tense Lebanese-Syrian frontier which has seen Syrian
troops crossing the border in pursuit of rebel soldiers since the popular
uprising began in Syria in March last year. Border incursions by the Syrian
army have led to the killing and wounding of several Lebanese citizens in
recent months.
A
70-year-old Lebanese woman identified as Halimah Krunbi was killed in the
village of Joura in east Lebanon Wednesday by Syrian army gunfire from across
the border. Last month, Lebanese television cameraman Ali Shaaban was killed by
Syrian gunfire in the northern area of Wadi Khaled near the border with Syria.
There are fears that if the
confrontation escalates between the Syrian army on the one hand, and the rebel
Free Syrian Army and other armed groups on the other, fighting may cross the
border.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/May-12/173153-lebanese-abduct-13-syrians-to-swap-for-kin.ashx#axzz1ujSJeXMq
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