Jaafar's Abductors Ask for $1Million Ransom amid 'Nonstop Efforts' in Arsal to Release Him
The kidnappers of Hussein Kamel Jaafar, who have taken him to the town of Yabroud in Syria, have asked for a one-million-dollar ransom, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, sources denied to LBCI television that Arsal Municipality head Ali al-Hujairi had headed to the Syrian town of Yabroud to negotiate with the kidnappers, noting that there are "nonstop efforts" to release the abductee.
NNA said the demand for ransom came during a phone conversation between the Jaafar clan and the man whose kidnapping led to a wave of sectarian abductions that started last Sunday.
Yabroud is a Syrian town located in Reef Damascus and lies near Lebanon's eastern border.
Later Thursday, the Jaafar clan released Khaled Ahmed al-Hujairi in the area of Sahlat al-May in Hermel after kidnapping him in Shaat in the Bekaa valley's north.
Al-Hujairi, who hails from the northeastern town of Arsal, contacted the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch which sent patrols to the area and took him to Hermel's police station.
NNA said gunmen in a black GMC had abducted al-Hujairi while he was riding his pickup truck.
His release came after Voice of Lebanon radio VDL (93.3) said that the Jaafar clan decided to stop the kidnappings and release three out of ten Arsal residents that the clan's members had abducted.
NNA identified the trio as Khaled al-Hujairi and Hamza and Mustafa Ezzedine, saying they were freed in Baablek.
The decision came following a meeting the clan's elders held in Hermel.
Later on Thursday, the Jaafar clan released abductee Saud Rayed and handed him over to army intelligence agents in Hermel.
On the political front, a Mustaqbal Movement delegation headed by secretary-general Ahmed Hariri visited the residence of Sheikh Yassine Ali Hamad Jaafar in Ramlet al-Baida in Beirut, in the presence of Jaafar clan dignitaries.
“The visit does not aim to mediate the release of Hussein and the other abductees, but rather to pacify the situation on the streets, especially among the families of the Baalbek-Hermel region and Arsal,” Hariri said after the meeting.
“We came here to warn against strife, as the Mustaqbal Movement had warned a year ago that there is a plot to undermine Lebanon through a Sunni-Shiite strife,” Hariri added.
“We will not tolerate this, as a Sunni-Shiite strife would burn the country and all the post-civil war achievements in Lebanon,” Hariri went on to say.
For his part, Sheikh Yassine Jaafar said: “We want to start extinguishing the Sunni-Shiite strife.”
In revenge for Jaafar's kidnapping by unidentified assailants late Saturday, armed men from the clan have kidnapped several residents of Arsal. But they have released a few as a goodwill gesture.
The army has deployed in the Sharawneh district of Baalbek, where many members of the Jaafar clan live, searching homes for captives.
Arsal is a majority Sunni town whose inhabitants generally support the revolt in neighboring Syria, while most of the population of Hermel and Baalbek are Shiites.
The residents decried in a statement read by Arsal municipal chief Ali al-Hujairi the tit-for-tat kidnappings, asking the Jaafar clan to release the kidnapped men and to avoid acts that lead to strife.
They also called on the state to settle the case of the abducted men, who hail from Arsal, and punish the perpetrators.
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