Army recovers two young Lebanese kidnapped at border with Syria

BEKAA — Two young Lebanese men kidnapped near the Syrian border Tuesday night have been released, according to security sources.

The pair were abducted while inside Lebanese territory in the Hermel region (North Bekaa) and taken into Syria. Syrian security forces handed them over to Lebanese Army intelligence overnight, our Bekaa correspondent reports.

The incident has heightened tensions in the border area, which has remained volatile since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

The two teenagers, identified as Hussein Adi Kataya and Moujtaba Ali Zeaiter, were riding a motorcycle near the village of Hoch al-Sayed Ali, a locality straddling the border between Lebanon and Syria and partly located in the Lebanese Hermel region, when they were abducted by a patrol of the new Syrian security forces at the Jousseh-Qaa border post.

This is not the first time serious incidents have occurred at the border. The most recent incident dates back to August, when a resident of Hoch al-Sayed Ali was killed by attackers while at home.

This locality has regularly been the scene of tensions since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024, due to the unresolved boundary with Syria and the loss of influence of Hezbollah and other Shiite clans linked to the locality and even into the Syrian region of Qoussair — in favor of the Sunni Islamist coalition now in power in Syria.

Reporting by our regional correspondent Sarah Abdallah.