Tehran: Lebanon must help kidnapped Iranians

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon Ghadanfar Roken Abadi met with Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel on Monday to discuss the issue of the Iranian engineers kidnapped in Syria who were reportedly moved to Lebanon. “We have called on the Lebanese government to follow up on this issue and release [the abducted Iranians] in case the news [of their transfer to Lebanon] turns out to be true,” Abadi said following the meeting. Abadi also said that he discussed with Charbel “means for cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Lebanon and the interior ministries of the two countries.” The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed in late January to have captured five Iranian military officers in the restless city of Homs and urged Iran to "immediately" pull out any additional troops it may have in Syria. In a similar incident in late December 2011, seven Iranian engineers were abducted in Homs, a hub of deadly unrest which has swept Syria since last March.