Lebanese Officer Kidnapped in Bekaa: Mossad Suspected in Ron Arad Probe

Lebanese security forces are investigating the disappearance of a retired General Security officer in the Beqaa Valley, with mounting suspicion that the operation was an abduction orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. The victim, identified as Ahmad Shukr, vanished under mysterious circumstances late last week, but new details emerging on Tuesday suggest a sophisticated extraction connected to the decades-old cold case of missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad.
According to a senior judicial source cited by Asharq Al-Awsat and Al Arabiya, investigators believe Shukr was the target of an “intelligence-based entrapment operation.” The retired captain was reportedly lured from his hometown of Nabi Chit in the northern Bekaa to the city of Zahle, ostensibly for a real estate transaction, before all contact was lost.
The investigation has uncovered a potential foreign link. Lebanese authorities are tracking two individuals holding Swedish passports—one of whom is of Lebanese descent—who arrived in Beirut just two days prior to Shukr’s disappearance. Flight records reportedly show that one of the suspects departed the country mere hours after the abduction occurred, leading security officials to suspect an immediate exfiltration.
The primary motive appears to be intelligence gathering related to Ron Arad, the Israeli Air Force navigator captured in 1986 after bailing out of his Phantom jet over southern Lebanon. Ahmad Shukr is the brother of Hassan Shukr, a deceased fighter with the Amal Movement who was allegedly part of the cell that originally captured Arad. Intelligence files suggest Arad may have been held for a period in a house belonging to the Shukr family in Nabi Chit before being transferred to Iranian custody or disappearing into the fog of the civil war.
“There is no physical or technical evidence indicating Shukr remains on Lebanese soil,” a security source stated, reinforcing the hypothesis that he was drugged and smuggled out of the country, possibly via a maritime route or a clandestine airlift.
The incident has raised alarms within Lebanon’s security establishment, as it suggests Israeli operatives can still penetrate deep into Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley. Ahmad Shukr is also a relative of Fuad Shukr, the senior Hezbollah military commander assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in July 2024, adding another layer of geopolitical sensitivity to the case.
While Israel has not officially claimed responsibility, the operation bears the hallmarks of high-stakes Mossad missions aimed at resolving the “open wound” of the Arad case. If confirmed, Shukr would be the highest-profile figure abducted from Lebanon for intelligence purposes in years.