BEIRUT: A joint Lebanese-Iraqi operation has freed three Lebanese who were kidnapped on Oct. 22 in Baghdad.
Lebanon’s Interior Ministry on Sunday confirmed the release of businessman Imad Al-Khatib, lawyer Nader Hamadeh and George Batrouni.
“Some” of the kidnappers were arrested, one was killed, and “security forces are pursuing the rest of the gang,” the ministry said.
Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk told Arab News: “There are no political dimensions to the kidnapping. The kidnappers presented themselves as commercial brokers.”
There was “close coordination with Iraqi intelligence,” but “no Lebanese security presence on the ground in the process of freeing the kidnapped people in Baghdad,” he said, praising the work of the Lebanese security services.
Machnouk called Iraq’s intelligence chief on Sunday morning to thank him for his efforts. The minister also thanked Iraq’s government.
A security source told Arab News: “The hijackers brought Al-Khatib to Baghdad on the pretext that they wanted to invest $100 million in Lebanon. They kidnapped him, along with his agent Hamadeh and Batrouni, when they left Baghdad airport.”
The kidnappers demanded a ransom of $2 million, but reduced it to $1 million, the source said.
“Iraqi intelligence, after handing over the amount to the kidnappers, cordoned them off, arrested three, killed one and freed the hostages. They’re pursuing another member of the gang,” the source said, adding that the ransom money will be returned to Lebanon.
Iraqi-Lebanese operation frees three hostages in Baghdad
Iraqi-Lebanese operation frees three hostages in Baghdad
Video shows armed men beating a Palestinian in West Bank
- The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said
TEL AVIV: Dozens of masked men armed with sticks beat and injured a Palestinian in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when they attacked a plant nursery, according to people who saw the attack and video footage obtained by The Associated Press.
Video filmed by security cameras shows men dressed mostly in black, faces covered, with several hitting and kicking a man on the ground.
Two witnesses who are members of the family that owns the facility said Israeli settlers beat 67-year-old Basim Saleh Yassin as he was trying to flee the German-Palestinian-run nursery in the northern West Bank village of Deir Sharaf. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
BACKGROUND
The attack is the latest in rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, where assaults increased during the Palestinian olive harvest in October and have continued.
Workers fled when they saw the settlers coming on Thursday but Yassin is deaf and couldn’t hear the warnings to leave, one family member said.
The witnesses said Yassin was in the hospital with broken bones in his hand and other injuries to his face, chest and back. Four cars at the nursery were burned.
The attack is the latest in rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, where assaults increased during the Palestinian olive harvest in October and have continued.
Israeli authorities have done little beyond issuing occasional condemnations of the violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the perpetrators “a handful of extremists” and urged law enforcement to pursue them for “the attempt to take the law into their own hands.”
But rights groups and Palestinians say the problem is far greater than a few bad actors, and attacks have become a daily phenomenon across the territory.
Israel’s army said it dispatched soldiers to the Shavei Shomron junction — close to the area of Thursday’s attack — following reports of dozens of masked Israelis vandalizing property.
The army said it apprehended three suspects who were taken to police for questioning. It said security forces condemn violence of any kind.
According to one of the family members who own the nursery, it was the third time in a year that the facility was attacked.
The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said.
In the video of Thursday’s attack, Yassin runs from a group of masked people before falling to the ground.
One man kicks him and another hits him twice with what appears to be a stick. Yassin stays on his knees as he’s struck again and then places his hands on the ground.
As the men are leaving, one kicks him in the head while others strike him again until he’s seen lying on the pavement.
