Tensions High in Bekaa after Tit-for-Tat Abductions in Saadnayel, Baalbek

A Lebanese man was abducted Monday afternoon in the city of Baalbek for unknown motives, which sparked unrest in his hometown Saadnayel in the Bekaa and prompted its residents to kidnap seven public van drivers in retaliation.

“Four unknown gunmen in a black, tinted-glass Grand Cherokee intercepted a car on the international highway in the al-Taybeh area and kidnapped Lebanese citizen Ayman Sawwan,” LBCI television reported.

The abductors spared his brother Khaled who was with him in the car and “stole cellphones that were in the vehicle,” according to LBCI.

Later on Monday, the TV network reported “counter-abductions” in Saadnayel.

Meanwhile, the abductee's son Salah Sawwan announced that he was “holding 10 (public) van drivers,” stressing that he will not release them before the kidnappers let go of his father.

However, several media outlets put the number of abducted drivers at seven.

The alarming developments prompted the army to raid the houses of suspected kidnappers in the Bekaa town of Brital.

Troops "raided the houses of fugitives wanted over kidnap operations, including that of Hussein Tleis, as well as the houses of people accused of abducting Ayman Sawwan," state-run National News Agency reported.

It later said troops arrested "the wife of Ayman Sawwan's kidnapper and a number of close associates in Brital."

Elsewhere in the Bekaa, angry gunmen blocked the Sarein-Riyaq road to protest the abduction of a young man from the Abbas family in Saadnayel.

Later on Monday, MTV reported that the seven drivers had been freed and that Saadnayel's residents had decided to reopen their town's road until Tuesday noon "as a goodwill gesture aimed at facilitating the release of their son Ayman Sawwan."

Y.R.