NowLebanon - Syrians kidnapped across Lebanon amid reports of pilgrims’ deaths, August 15 2012

Syrians were kidnapped across Lebanon on Wednesday as enraged residents of Beirut’s predominantly Shiite suburb of Dahiyeh attacked Syrians amid reports that Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Syria had been killed in an air strike.

LBC television cited a rebel spokesperson as saying that four of the Shiite pilgrims abducted in Syria had been killed by an airstrike in the Aleppo town of Aazaz.

The reports came after AFP said that ten houses had bombed in the town outside Aleppo.

Following news of the pilgrims’ deaths, a number of their relatives hijacked a van on Beirut’s airport road and kidnapped the Syrian workers on board, according to New TV.

Meanwhile, enraged residents in Beirut’s Dahiyeh took to the streets and attacked and kidnapped dozens of Syrian nationals. 

The armed gunmen also vandalized shops and carts belonging to Syrians, the National News Agency added.

MTV reported that four gunmen kidnapped Syrian national Bahaa al-Bahaya in the Shouf’s Baalishmay.

The kidnappings came on the heels of an abduction earlier in the day of “more than 20 Free Syrian Army members” by the military wing of the Moqdad family, who warned that they would kidnap Qatari and Saudi citizens.

Their action was in response to the kidnapping of a Moqdad family member in Syria. The FSA identified the abductee as a Hezbollah member, but the Shiite party denied the charges.

The Saudi Arabian Embassy in Lebanon issued a stark warning following the kidnappings, calling on their nationals to leave the country “immediately.”

In May, 11 Shiite pilgrims were abducted in Syria’s Aleppo while returning from a pilgrimage in Iran.

Following the abduction, a previously unknown armed group calling itself the "Syrian Revolutionaries – Aleppo Province" said that it was holding the Shiite men, while the Free Syrian Army had repeatedly denied its involvement in the abduction.

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