Meqdads await Lebanese cabinet statement

The al-Meqdad family, an armed Lebanese Shiite clan which holds more than 20 Syrians in Lebanon in a bid to swap them for its own kidnapped relative in Damascus, said Thursday it would wait for the outcome of the Lebanese cabinet’s crisis committee before taking further action. “At the behest of prominent political and spiritual officials, especially the crisis committee formed by the cabinet, and [in a bid] to maintain civil peace ... the Meqdad family announces a wait-and-see approach, regarding the outcome of the crisis committee,” the clan said in statement. The Meqdad clan has kidnapped over 20 Syrian nationals in retaliation for the mid-August abduction of kinsman Hassan Meqdad in Damascus. The family also holds Turkish businessman Aydin Tufan Tekin. Tekin was snatched upon arrival in Beirut on August 15 in an effort to pressure Turkey to help ensure Hassan Meqdad’s release. Another Turkish citizen, Abdulbasit Arslan, was kidnapped on August 17, but the Meqdad family has denied involvement in his abduction. The clan has accused the Free Syrian Army of Hassan’s abduction, but FSA commander Riad Asaad has denied that the FSA is holding Meqdad. “This is one of the regime’s games to create strife and instability in Lebanon,” Asaad said in remarks published Tuesday by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai. Commenting on the FSA’s statement, a Turkish official told The Daily Star that “the ball was now firmly in the Meqdad family’s court after the FSA denied involvement in the kidnapping.”