Retired officer kidnapped in the Bekaa: Israel suspected, according to Asharq al-Awsat

BEIRUT — Retired General Security officer Ahmad Ali Shukr, whose brother is suspected of being involved in the 1986 capture of Israeli pilot Ron Arad, recently disappeared. Investigators are considering the possibility that he was killed by Israeli agents or transferred to Israel, a judicial official told AFP on Tuesday.

A source contacted by L’Orient-Le Jour confirmed there are indications suggesting a kidnapping attributed to Israel.

According to AFP, evidence suggests the former officer was “lured by two Swedish nationals” who arrived in Lebanon two days before his disappearance in a location far from his home. One of them reportedly left the country on the same day Shukr vanished.

The source also told L'Orient-le Jour that two Lebanese suspects are being sought, including at least one with dual Lebanese-Swedish nationality.

Shukr is the brother of Abdel Salam Shukr, secretary general of the Supreme Shia Islamic Council.

Sheikh Khatib also contacted President Joseph Aoun to discuss Shukr’s disappearance. He said the president had promised that “all possible efforts will be made to solve the mystery of this disappearance.”

Shukr, from Nabi Chit in Baalbek, was last in contact on Dec. 19 while in central Bekaa. A relative, also the local mukhtar (elected village head) Ahmad Mohammad Shukr, told L’Orient-Le Jour last Friday that Shukr worked as a “middleman” in real estate and went missing while on his way to a meeting regarding the purchase of land in Zahleh.

Local officials described the incident as a “kidnapping,” though a source within the Lebanese army said Shukr remained “missing” and had not been officially declared a kidnapping victim.

On Monday, local figures from the Bekaa, as well as villages east and west of Baalbek, gathered at the Husseinieh (a Shia ceremonial hall) in Nabi Chit to denounce Shukr’s disappearance.

Participants, who demanded clarity on the case “before the holidays,” stressed that the gathering was “not directed against any security, political, or sectarian party.”

During the meeting, the village council president Hani Moussawi denounced the incident as a “kidnapping” by “lawless individuals” and added that Shukr “suffers from an illness.”