BEIRUT, 13 August 2004 — Kidnappers in Iraq released five Syrian truck drivers yesterday after holding them for three days, but without their trucks and merchandise, Lebanese security services said. The truckers, who transported generators for a Lebanese company, were abducted on Monday some 130 kilometers from the Iraqi capital.
Four Lebanese truckers and a Syrian were snatched last Friday on the same road, of whom two were released Monday and Tuesday. One of them, Nasser Al-Jundi, told reporters after his return home to Lebanon that the captives had been well-treated.
They were asked about their merchandise, also generators sent to Iraq by another Lebanese firm. Electricity is tightly rationed in Iraq, making generators essential for many operations. Since the start of a wave of hostage-takings in Iraq in April, about 15 Lebanese have been abducted, most of whom have been released. One however, Hussein Olayyan, who worked for a telecoms company, was beheaded in June.
“We all stayed together,” Jundi told Reuters after returning to his home village in northern Lebanon late on Wednesday night. “When I was held I experienced nothing but good treatment. We slept together and they gave us good food that we ate together and medicine when we needed it.” The convoy transporting power generators and fruit juice was intercepted on a road between Baghdad and Ramadi, a volatile area west of the capital where suspicion of foreigners runs high. Jundi said he had a cold when he traveled to Iraq and that his captors had brought him medicine to help him recover.
The Syrian captive’s Lebanese mother Khalidiya Abboud was at the Jundi household on Wednesday night to welcome Nasir home from his ordeal. “I knew from Nasir Al-Jundi that my son is being held with the rest of the lads and that he is fine and that they are all being treated well,” she said.
In another development, two Hezbollah Internet sites have been shut down in recent days by hosts in the United States and Britain, which both accuse the Lebanese guerrilla group of “terrorist” activities, Hezbollah said yesterday. “These are legal measures American and British firms are taking against our sites,” a Hezbollah official responsible for the group’s Internet sites told Reuters.
“Our hosts closed them down because of accusations related to terrorism.” He did not give the name of the hosts and it was not possible to independently verify who had closed down the sites.
He said Hezbollah, which Washington blames for 1983 attacks against the US Marine barracks and embassy that killed scores of people, was looking for new hosts and hoped to have www.hizbullah.org and www.hizbullah.tv back online within days.
“These sorts of legal measures have been happening for a while now. Every so often our sites get closed. This time it was two sites at once,” he said. Web hosting companies put websites onto the Internet via a web server.
Meanwhile in Beirut, journalists and trade union representatives staged a sit-in demonstration at the headquarters of the Lebanese Press Association to protest a decision by France to ban broadcasts by a Hezbollah television channel. France accuses the Al-Manar channel of inciting violence, although channel sources insist that the ban is due to pressure from Jewish interests in France.
