ZAHLE, Lebanon (AP) — A former Lebanese security captain disappeared in December while meeting someone who claimed to want to purchase property from him.
Both Lebanese authorities and relatives of former General Security Directorate Captain Ahmed Shukr suspect he was kidnapped and transported to Israel as part of an intelligence mission to gather details about an Israeli pilot who went missing in Lebanon 40 years ago.
The relatives think Shukr was targeted due to his brother’s potential connections to the vanishing of Israeli navigator Ron Arad. However, the family maintains that Shukr was never affiliated with any militant organization and had no involvement in Arad’s disappearance.
Almost three months following Shukr’s vanishing — and after military strikes by the U.S. and Israel against Iran sparked broader Middle East conflict — Israeli forces conducted a fatal commando raid in Nabi Chit, Lebanon, over the weekend while searching for Arad’s body.
Local witnesses reported that the commando unit started excavating in the Shukr family graveyard in Nabi Chit before encountering resistance from Hezbollah militants and armed local residents. Heavy fighting and air bombardments resulted in 41 deaths and numerous injuries, Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported. Israeli forces suffered no reported losses.
Whether the Israeli mission resulted from intelligence obtained from Shukr remains unclear.
Israeli military officials confirmed the operation sought evidence regarding Arad’s fate and stated his body was not recovered. Military representatives refused to respond when questioned about whether Israel had captured Shukr.
Nevertheless, this event seems consistent with Israel’s long-standing practice of secret operations and military raids deep within Lebanon to capture or eliminate individuals it claims participated in anti-Israeli activities.
Israel has sometimes taken credit for such missions, including seizing a ship captain from northern Lebanon in November 2024 whom Israel described as a high-ranking Hezbollah operative.
In other instances, like the puzzling kidnapping and murder of a Hezbollah-connected Lebanese money changer in April 2024, Israel has stayed quiet, though Lebanese officials claim they possess proof of its participation.
For years, Israel has attempted to determine Arad’s fate after he ejected from his fighter aircraft during an attack on suspected Palestinian militants in 1986 near the southern Lebanese coastal city of Sidon.
A Shiite Muslim group known as the Believers’ Resistance took Arad prisoner following his landing.
In 1994, Israeli commandos transported by helicopter penetrated deep into Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, capturing Believers’ Resistance leader Mustafa Dirani and bringing him to Israel.
Dirani was freed a decade later through a prisoner swap. He informed the Israeli newspaper Maariv in a 2000 interview that Arad vanished in 1988 when his captors left him to visit family members near a major 1988 battlefield between Hezbollah forces and Israeli troops, who controlled portions of Lebanon then.
However, The Associated Press reported in 2000 that Dirani informed an Israeli court that Iranian soldiers had taken Arad away. An Israeli legal official noted that Dirani provided conflicting stories during his imprisonment.
Following extensive indirect talks between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-supported organization submitted a report about Arad through intermediaries in 2008, indicating he likely died while attempting to reach Israel after escaping.
Shukr’s relatives informed AP that months before his disappearance, he became acquainted with a Lebanese citizen named Ali Morad who reached out through social media and leased an apartment the former officer owned south of Beirut.
Shukr’s spouse, Salwa Hazimeh, explained that Morad telephoned her husband in mid-December, informing him that a businessman wanted to purchase land he was selling in Zahle and wished to view it at 5:30 p.m.
“I was standing by him as he spoke and told him that we cannot see the plot of land later in the afternoon but he (Morad) insisted,” she said. Shukr traveled the following day, December 17, to Zahle, where surveillance video captured him exiting his vehicle and entering another car, Hazimeh explained.
“Since then we know nothing about him,” Hazimeh said.
Shukr’s relatives report he suffers from diabetes, hypertension and cardiac issues, requiring continuous medical attention and treatment.
Family members stated Shukr’s cellular phone last showed activity in the eastern village of Ghazzeh around 7 a.m. on December 18. They suspect he was transported overland into Israel through southern Lebanon.
“It looks like an extraordinary rendition,” said Adam Coogle, deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “That is effectively kidnapping someone, then transporting them across borders without any due process.”
Legal authorities in Beirut reported the court system has filed criminal charges against four individuals in the matter, including Morad, plus a Lebanese-French citizen, a Syrian-Swedish citizen and a Lebanese woman who leased a villa with views of Zahle. The legal officials stated an SUV was purchased for $22,000 for Shukr’s abduction and the woman paid $42,000 for one year’s rental of the villa.
Morad’s attorney, Samaher Bourhan, stated her client claims he was a victim who thought he was employed by a foreign corporation and was ultimately exploited in the kidnapping. She explained the company requested him to purchase the vehicle and register it in his name, alleging it was due to their lack of legal status in Lebanon.
“He said that he handed himself over because he had no idea about the operation,” Bourhan said.
Shukr’s wife and his brother, Abdul-Salam Shukr, informed AP that the former officer possesses no knowledge about Arad’s fate.
However, another Shukr family member, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive details, revealed that Shukr’s brother, Hassan Shukr was a Hezbollah member and knew Arad’s location during his captivity.
The family member stated Arad was confined in a secured room at Hassan Shukr’s in-laws’ residence, who belonged to Dirani’s Believers’ Resistance in Nabi Chit.
Legal officials verified that a Lebanese military document from the 1980s indicated Arad was detained by the Shukr family in Nabi Chit and became sick at one point, prompting them to bring medical professionals to care for him.
The family member reported Hassan Shukr died in the Meidoun battle on May 5, 1988. That day, when fighters returned from combat to Nabi Chit, they discovered the metal door of Arad’s holding room open and the prisoner missing, the family member explained.
The Shukr family member emphasized that Ahmed Shukr was not involved in detaining Arad and lacks any further information about the situation.
An AP team visited the two-level residence that legal officials and Shukr’s family identified as the headquarters used by operatives to execute the kidnapping. Lebanese authorities had sealed the main metal entrance while local residents reported seeing no suspicious activity inside the property, called “Wood Villa.”
A resident from a neighboring building reported Lebanese security personnel gathered evidence from the house in mid-December.
A local merchant stated security agents confiscated his surveillance camera recordings. He mentioned the villa had previously been rented by individuals or groups for celebrations.
