Syria to Free al-Ahmed as Wadi Khaled Residents Release Alawite Abductee
Lebanese citizen Suleiman al-Ahmed, who hails from Wadi Khaled, will be released on Tuesday and handed over to the Higher Lebanese-Syrian Council, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.
Al-Ahmed -- who was kidnapped in Lebanon and taken into Syrian territory – will be released after his hometown residents released Hikmat Youssef, an Alawite citizen who was taken hostage along with several other people over al-Ahmed’s abduction.
Higher Lebanese-Syrian Council chief Nasri Khouri told National News Agency that Syrian authorities will release Suleiman al-Ahmed and he will be handed over to the Lebanese army tomorrow.
Alawite abductee Youssef was released earlier on Monday from the northern town of Wadi Khaled “as a good will gesture,” after efforts by the dignitaries and municipality chiefs of Akkar.
Youssef was released by his abductors to show that the “the people of Wadi Khaled do not intend to cause harm to anyone, and believe in coexistence between all area components,” NNA reported.
The release was a gesture of good will from the area residents, who hoped it would lead to the release of al-Ahmed, NNA added.
On Sunday, gunmen abducted four Syrian Alawites and a Shiite man along the border with Syria after Youssef was kidnapped in the same region, a security official and witnesses told AFP.
The tit-for-tat abductions occurred in the Wadi Khaled border region between the two countries, where tensions have run high between supporters and opponents of the regime in Syria, the sources said.
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