Rival Lebanese leaders urged calm on Wednesday after two Sunni Muslim government supporters were kidnapped in what was believed to be retaliation for the killing earlier this year of a Shi'ite opposition activist. Police reported that Ziad Qabalan, 25, and Ziad Ghandour, 12, went missing on Monday and their vehicle was found abandoned in a Shi'ite neighbourhood of Beirut on Tuesday. Ghandour's father and Qabalan are members of the Progressive Socialist Party of pro-government Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. A short police communiqué said the two left Beirut PSP stronghold of Wata Mseitbeh on Monday in a French made Renault minivan which was found 24 hours later deserted east of the capital. The communiqué included photographs of the two, urging whoever has information pertaining to their whereabouts to report it to police.
It did not disclose further details.
The PSP confirmed the two went missing but withheld comment on whether efforts are being exerted to determine their whereabouts. Lebanese media reports said the two had been kidnapped by members of the Shi'ite Shamas clan, who had vowed to avenge the death of Adnan Shamas in clashes between government and opposition supporters at a Beirut university in January. Sporadic violence between the mainly Sunni, Druze and Christian ruling coalition and mainly Shi'ite and Christian opposition have killed 10 people since the opposition launched a street campaign to topple the government in December.
The political crisis, Lebanon's worst since the 1975-1990 civil war, has at times threatened to spill into Sunni-Shi'ite strife as sectarian tensions run high. Jumblatt urged calm after visiting the families of the two missing people. The daily An Nahar on Wednesday said Jumblatt swiftly called House Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, in the first such contact between the two leaders in months due to the ongoing political crisis. The paper said Jumblatt asked Berri to help secure the release of the kidnapped persons "to avoid unrest."
Saad al-Hariri, the Sunni leader of the anti-Syrian majority coalition, called on all leaders to help secure their release. The opposition's main Shi'ite parties, Hezbollah and Amal, denounced the "very dangerous" kidnapping and urged the security forces to liberate the two and punish their captors.