Dubai: Syrian citizens living in Lebanon before the revolution erupted against the rule of President Bashar Al Assad in March 2011 said they are not feeling safe anymore despite living in Lebanon for decades.
Ahmad, a shop owner in the Bekkah valley told Gulf News in a telephone interview that a number of shops owned by Syrians who have been living here for more than 15 years were vandalised by angry members of Al Makdad family on Wednesday and the local authorities seems helpless and can not offer help to them. Ahmad said he has been living in Lebanon since he migrated some 20 years ago during which he dealt with people from different sects. “I never felt myself insecure like on Wednesday evening when a group of five men entered my home appliances shop and started breaking its contents. They asked me to leave immediately. Two of the attackers suggested that I should be arrested till the release of Hassan Al Makdad who was kidnapped in Syria three days ago. The other three said that there was no use of kidnapping me because I have been living in Lebanon for a long time and have to value for the opposition in Syria,” Ahmad said.
He said the losses in my shop and in other three shops owned by Syrian nationals were quite big and when the four owners contacted the local police they said they were advised to not leave their home for the time till the situation calm down.
A powerful Shiite Muslim clan in Lebanon yesterday claimed to have abducted more Syrian nationals and vowed further kidnappings in retaliation for the seizure of a family member by rebels in Syria this week, as Syria’s civil war threatened to break open violent rivalries in its neighbour Lebanon.
The wave of kidnappings raises the dire scenario that the battle for control over Syria will ignite tensions in Lebanon, a country with an explosive sectarian mix, with deep divisions between pro- and anti-Syrian factions and with its own history of civil war.
On Wednesday, Shiite supporters of the family clan went on a rampage in a Beirut neighbourhood, vandalising dozens of Syrian-run stores, and then blocked the road to the airport, setting tires on fire and wandering the road with guns. The road was only reopened early yesterday morning. In past months, gunfights have erupted between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in Lebanon, including a May clash in the northern city of Tripoli that left eight people dead.
