Four hunters from Akkar kidnapped on Jan. 21 near Tabqa in northeastern Syria were released Thursday morning and handed over to Lebanese authorities the same evening, according to our correspondent in North Lebanon, Michel Hallak. Mohammad Kaddour, from Bebnine, Omar al-Akoumi, Hassane Mansour, and Abdessalam Ibrahim, residing in Halba, were freed after contacts between Lebanese General Security and the parties responsible for the kidnapping, in coordination with Syrian authorities.

The hunters returned Thursday through the Jdeidet Yabous border crossing in Syria, opposite the Lebanese border post of Masnaa, our correspondent continues. They were received Friday by the acting Director-General of Security, Gen. Elias Baissari. This group of friends, who regularly hunt together, had crossed the border in a jeep on Jan. 21 with their weapons and equipment to meet a Syrian acquaintance from Raqqa province.

According to testimonies from their families and local officials who worked for several days to ensure their return, they had not been heard from for nearly two weeks. Their families learned the day after their disappearance that their car had broken down and that after managing to restart it, they had taken the wrong direction, eventually being intercepted at the al-Kasra checkpoint, on the banks of the Euphrates south of Raqqa. They had since been without specific news and no ransom demand or proof of life had reached them.

Testimonies collected by L'Orient-Le Jour indicated that the hunters had been apprehended by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, predominantly Kurdish), who control the region, and then taken to Tabqa.

Venturing into a region undergoing significant upheaval since the fall of the Syrian regime on Dec. 8 is far from risk-free. Controlled by the Kurdish forces of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) since 2017, this hold is increasingly contested, particularly in predominantly Arab cities like Raqqa, the former self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State (IS).

Emboldened by Assad's overthrow, Turkey regularly threatens the Kurds, while its ally, the interim leader of Syria and former head of the now-disbanded Islamist rebel group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has been trying for two months to bring the SDF back into the state's fold.