Lebanon says retired security officer with ties to capture of Ron Arad has disappeared

Lebanese authorities are investigating the recent disappearance of a retired security officer whose brother was allegedly involved in the 1986 capture of an Israeli air force navigator, a Lebanese judicial official tells AFP.

Israeli Air Force officer Ron Arad’s plane went down over southern Lebanon during the country’s 1975-1990 civil war, and he was believed to have been initially held by the Amal Shiite group. He is now presumed dead, though his remains were never returned.

The Lebanese judicial official says on condition of anonymity that authorities are looking into the disappearance a week ago of retired General Security officer Ahmad Shukr amid conflicting information about his fate.

Initial investigations indicate Shukr “was lured from his hometown of Nabi Sheet” to a location near the city of Zahle, where he disappeared.

A source close to the family says Shukr is the brother of Hassan Shukr, who “was a fighter in the group that participated in capturing Israeli pilot Ron Arad after his plane was downed on October 16” in 1986.

Hassan Shukr was killed in 1988 in a battle between Israeli forces and local fighters, including those from the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group, the source close to the family adds, requesting anonymity.

The judicial official says information indicates Ahmad Shukr “was lured by two Swedes who arrived in Lebanon two days before his kidnapping, and that one left through Beirut airport the day Shukr disappeared.”

Investigators are looking into the possibility that he was killed by Israeli agents or transferred to Israel, the official says, adding that so far no trace has been found of him in Lebanon.

Shukr is a relative of Hezbollah military chief Fouad Shukr, whom Israel assassinated last year, according to the UK-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

According to the newspaper, Hassan Shukr was part of a cell led by then-Amal commander Mustafa Dirani that took part in shooting down Arad’s plane and abducting him. Arad was held for a while in a house belonging to the Shukr family in Nabi Chit, the newspaper says.

Dirani, who later broke with Amal and joined Hezbollah, is long thought to have been the last person to see Arad alive, was abducted by Israeli elite commandos in 1994 and released a decade later in an exchange with Hezbollah.