BAALBEK, Lebanon: Rival gunmen engaged in tit-for-tat kidnappings in the Bekaa Valley Monday, heightening sectarian tensions in the region that are already boiling over in the case of 23 Lebanese soldiers and policemen held hostage by militants.
The wave of kidnappings that swept the Bekaa Valley, some of which were motivated by ransom, was triggered by the beheading of Sgt. Abbas Medlej, the second Lebanese soldier to be slaughtered by ISIS militants in less than two weeks after the killing of 1st Sgt. Ali al-Sayyed.
“The Army has raided houses of people suspected of involvement in the kidnappings and arrested some suspects,” a senior military official told The Daily Star. He said troops intervened in several areas in the Bekaa Valley to reopen roads, adding that some of the kidnappings were linked to demands for ransom.
Security sources in the Bekaa said the families of the captured soldiers had nothing to do with the spate of kidnappings. “Rogue kidnapping gangs have taken advantage of the rising sectarian tensions and the prevailing chaos in the Bekaa to carry out kidnap-for-ransom operations,” the sources told The Daily Star.
Anonymous armed groups, angered by the kidnappings, closed off the highway near Baalbek’s southern entrance with vans and large vehicles in protest. They inspected vehicles, requesting the passengers’ identification cards.
A state of panic ensued after the gunmen fanned out on the road, prompting a heavy dispatch of soldiers who later cleared the highway and beefed up security in the area.
Media reports also cited an influx of armed groups in the nearby Al-Ain village. Lebanese authorities, working to cool rising tempers, arrested two suspects in the kidnappings as the Lebanese Army raided a number of houses in search for hostages.
Two men from the Masri family were detained Monday after the family was accused of kidnapping Arsal residents Hussein al-Fliti and Abdullah al-Breidy the day before to use them as a bargaining chip against ISIS, which is holding one of their relatives captive.
Initial media reports said Mohammad and Hussein al-Masri were released, but Al-Jadeed television reported that the family had denied the news.
Four gunmen in a black Jeep Cherokee intercepted Ayman Salaheddine Sawan and his brother Khaled near the predominantly Shiite village of Brital Monday afternoon as they were driving to Baalbek. The gunmen kidnapped Ayman, 44, who hails from the village of Saadnayel, but let Khaled go.
Ayman Sawan’s brother and Saadnayel’s residents speculated that ransom was a motive behind the kidnapping. In response, residents from Saadnayel, a mainly Sunni village, cut off the road linking it to Taalabaya with sandbags.
The angry crowd, which included the son of Sawan, then kidnapped seven bus drivers who were stuck in the traffic jam resulting from their road block, a security source told The Daily Star. However, the seven were released and the road linking Saadnayel to Taalabaya was reopened late Monday in a goodwill gesture by the villagers, sources in the area said.
Marwan Hujeiri, a resident of Arsal, was also kidnapped over the weekend, but the party responsible for his abduction has yet to be determined.
A security source told The Daily Star that Fliti and Breidy, who are being held at the residence of a Masri family member in Hourtaala, east Lebanon, were kidnapped to exchange for one of the Lebanese hostages.
The Masri family member is demanding the release of Ali Zayd al-Masri, who is being held by ISIS. He warned that if their relative was harmed or killed, Breidy and Fliti would face the same fate.
The Masri family, however, disavowed the relative who carried out the kidnapping, sources in the town said.
While protests have been held since the militants fled with their hostages after clashes with the Army in the northeastern town of Arsal last month, some families of the captives warned that they would take matters into their own hands after ISIS said it beheaded Medlej last Saturday.
Officials have warned against retaliatory measures, imploring the families of hostages to rely on the state to resolve the crisis.
Meanwhile, Syrian warplanes raided suspected positions of Syrian militants on the outskirts of Arsal, the National News Agency reported.
Also, rockets fired from the outskirts of Arsal landed in the Bekaa Valley, causing no casualties or damage, a source told The Daily Star.
The source said two rockets fell in agricultural farmlands in the village of Nabi Othman. Moments later, another rocket fell in the village of Hor Taala.
The Army confirmed only two of the four rockets that reportedly crashed in the area, one between Labweh and Nabi Othman, the other in Hor Taala.