GCC states ask citizens to leave Lebanon

BEIRUT: Saudi Arabia and other GCC states have told citizens to leave Lebanon after a mass kidnapping in retaliation for events in Syria raised fears that violence may be spilling across the region.

On a day when Lebanese captives held by Syrian rebels were among the wounded in a deadly air strike by government forces, citizens of Turkey and Saudi Arabia were seized along with about 20 Syrians in an area run by Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Their threat to take more Saudi, Turkish and Qatari hostages to secure the release of a kinsman held by Syrian rebels in Damascus bore ominous echoes of still deeply polarised Lebanon's own, long civil war - and Gulf governments lost no time in urging visitors to leave Beirut's popular summer tourist haunts.

'The snowball will grow,' warned Hatem al-Meqdad, a senior member of the powerful Lebanese Meqdad family who said his brother was detained by the Free Syrian Army two days ago.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite minority has long relied on support from Iran and its Hezbollah allies. He accuses the powers of the Gulf and Turkey of promoting the revolt against him, which grew out of Arab Spring demonstrations 18 months ago.

While his opponents, and the Western powers which sympathise with them, insist they want to avoid the kind of sectarian blood-letting seen in Iraq, rebels who mostly come from Syria's disadvantaged majority have seized Iranians and Lebanese there in recent weeks, saying they may be working for Assad.

On Wednesday, the Meqdad clan said it was holding more than 20 people, including a Saudi, a Turkish businessman and several Syrians they described as anti-Assad fighters. Its action was a blow to a Lebanese economy for which Gulf tourists have played a part in recovery after 15 years of civil war ended in 1990.

'We still haven't even done one percent; we still haven't really moved,' said a man who told reporters late on Wednesday in Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled Dahiya district that he and his fellow masked gunmen from the Meqdad clan's 'military wing' were ready to take more action against Syrian rebels in Lebanon.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the kidnappings, but his government seemed largely powerless to act.

'This,' he said, 'brings us back to the days of the painful war, a page that Lebanese citizens have been trying to turn.'

Saudi Arabia 'called on Saudi citizens currently in Lebanon to leave immediately given the latest developments in Lebanon and the appearance of some explicit threats to abduct Saudi citizens and others', the Saudi state news agency said.

Qatar's state news agency said: 'Due to unstable security situation, Qatar's embassy in Beirut has urged Qatari nationals to leave Lebanon immediately.'

A diplomat said the Turkish businessman had been kidnapped shortly after arriving in Lebanon on Wednesday: 'He was here for business, arrived today, and was kidnapped near the airport.'

Air France diverted one of its planes away from Beirut on Wednesday evening for 'security reasons' after the kidnappings. The road from the airport has regularly been blocked by protesting families of Lebanese being held in Syria.

The Turkish hostage told a Lebanese television channel he was being treated well. Another station broadcast footage it said showed two Syrian hostages in the custody of masked gunmen from the Meqdad clan wearing fatigues and armed with rifles.

A clan member said the detained Syrians included an army lieutenant who had deserted to join the rebels. He added that Syrians who were not rebel fighters had been freed.

One of the detainees, shown looking tense in a room full of gunmen, identified himself as a captain and said his role was to help supply the FSA. The other man said he was his assistant.

The rebels in Damascus had accused their captive, Hassan al-Meqdad, of being sent to Syria by Hezbollah to aid Assad.