Report: In Lebanon, it is suspected that Israel kidnapped an officer involved in the kidnapping of Ron Arad

A Lebanese legal source for the Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awast: The investigations into the disappearance of the retired officer in the general security apparatus in Lebanon, Captain Ahmed Shukur, who disappeared five days ago in the Bekaa region, indicate that he was kidnapped by Israel, following an “intelligence development operation”, on suspicion of his involvement in the kidnapping of Ron Arad in southern Lebanon in 1986.

The source noted that the security forces have stepped up their investigations since Shukur’s disappearance about a week ago. “They monitored the security cameras and analyzed communications data, which revealed initial clues indicating that Shukor was the victim of a carefully planned trap operation that began in his hometown of Nebi Shavut in the northern Bak’a, before his tracks were lost near the city of Zahala in the central Lebanon Valley, where the search efforts for him are now focused.

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With conflicting reports surrounding the reasons and circumstances of Shukar’s disappearance, the hypothesis that Israel was behind his abduction gained momentum, based on preliminary findings from the ongoing investigation.

According to him, information gathered from preliminary investigations, surveillance and tests indicates that the operation was carried out by two Swedish citizens, one of Lebanese origin, who arrived in Lebanon only two days before the incident through Rafik al-Hariri International Airport. The first of them left through the same airport on the day Shukor disappeared, which raises serious questions about his role in the operation.

The second person, of Lebanese origin, remains in Lebanon, unless he left illegally. The same legal source in Lebanon does not rule out the possibility that “other people in Lebanon were involved in tracking Ahmed Shokur and creating the conditions for his kidnapping.

Several scenarios were proposed regarding the fate of the retired officer, starting with the possibility of his elimination by Israel, similarly to his transfer outside of Lebanon, that is, to Israel.

The legal source overseeing the initial investigation stated that the intelligence “has not yet found material or technological evidence indicating the presence of Shukar in Lebanese territory, which strengthens the hypothesis that he was drugged and kidnapped to Israel, either by air in a complex operation, or by sea using a boat that left the shores of Lebanon, as happened in the kidnapping of Navy Captain Emad Amhz in northern Lebanon on November 2 of last year.”

Sources close to the Shukur family told the Saudi newspaper that the missing retired officer is the brother of Hassan Shukur, a Hezbollah operative who was spared in the “Law and Order” operation in Mason village in the Bekaa on May 22, 1988, when IDF forces raided Hezbollah bases.

According to the information quoted in the newspaper, Hassan Shukar “was a fighter in the group led by Mustafa Dirani that participated in the capture of the Israeli navigator Ron Arad in 1986, and the group that kidnapped him transferred him to the home of one of the family’s relatives in Kfar Nabi Shit, before transferring him to an unknown location and his traces disappeared.”