MAJDAL ANJAR, Lebanon: Lebanese authorities have arrested a Baath Party cell allegedly involved in handing over Syrian rebel fighters to Bashar Assad’s regime after kidnapping them in Lebanon, security sources said Friday.
The sources told The Daily Star that the all-Lebanese, seven-member cell was arrested in Kfar Qouq, in the southeastern district of Hasbaya, earlier this week.
Another security source told The Daily Star the Internal Security Forces Information Branch has so far arrested nine suspects over the case, including several members of the Hezbollah-linked Resistance Brigades.
Police raided the house of Majed Mansour, a Baath Party official in the Bekaa Valley village of Gaza, but he had escaped, the source said.
But the raid resulted in the arrest of his brother, who was also suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of Syrian Mohammad Naamani one week ago.
Another abductee was identified as Syrian Fayez Abdallah, and was kidnapped one month ago. The source said the two hostages were transferred to Syria either through a tunnel in Qusaya in the Bekaa Valley, or through a Syrian army controlled crossing in the village of Yanta in Rashaya al-Wadi.
The sources said one group member, identified as Haitham Hamad, was wounded during the raid, then taken to a local hospital and kept under strict watch by the police.
The cell has been in close contact with Ali Deeb, who was an official of the intelligence branch of Syria’s Baath Party during the era of Syrian tutelage over Lebanon between 1990 and 2005, a security source said.
Local leaders from the Bekaa Valley met Friday at Dar al-Fatwa in Majdal Anjar to condemn the reported abductions and laud police efforts.
The Mufti of Bekaa and Zahle Sheikh Khalil al-Mais accused the Resistance Brigades of standing behind the “condemned kidnappings,” and underlined that “such acts harm the prestige of the state and its security agencies.”
For their part, pro-Syrian regime officials held a meeting in the Bekaa town of Khiara to denounce the arrests. The meeting included members of the Baath party and other pro-Syrian regime Lebanese parties.
They accused the police of acting “like a gang,” warning it against repeating such actions.
The wife of rebel fighter Mohammad Naamani, Wafaa al-Akle, told The Daily Star that her husband was kidnapped after being chased by two cars last week.
She claimed that her two children, aged 3 and 13, were also abducted for three hours before being left in a field.
She said she had not yet received any calls from the kidnappers to inform her about the location of her husband, who she said arrived to Lebanon almost two years ago for medical treatment after he was wounded in fighting.
She said Naamani joined the Free Syrian Army as soon as the conflict erupted in neighboring Syria nearly four years ago, adding that he had spent seven years in a Syrian prison.
Akle also said her husband was wanted in Lebanon after being sentenced to one year and three months behind bars for using a fake Lebanese ID to enter the country.
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