Lebanese Clan Promises Not to Abduct Visitors, NNA Says

Hajj Maher Meqdad, secretary general of the Meqdad Family League, pledged not to attack anyone from the Persian Gulf, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.

Meqdad said the clan had halted all “military operations as they caught a sufficient number of Free Syrian Army supporters as well as a Turkish citizen,” NNA said.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain advised their nationals to leave Lebanon after kidnapping threats were made against them following the abduction of a member of the Meqdad family in Syria.

The call came after the extended family, which belongs mostly to Lebanon’s Muslim Shiite community, captured 20 Syrians and a Turk in retaliation for the abduction of the family member, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation reported yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer M. Freedman in Geneva at jfreedman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net