2 missing Lebanese found dead

Police found the bodies Thursday of a man and a 12-year-old boy who disappeared earlier this week, an incident that has shaken Lebanon and sparked fears of renewed sectarian violence in this divided country.

The bodies of the boy, Ziad Ghandour, and 25-year-old Ziad Qabalan were found by police in the southern coastal village of Jadra, just north of the port city of Sidon, after police received a telephone tip saying where they were.

Police said the state of the bodies suggested they had been dead at least 48 hours, but gave no details on how they were killed. A security official said they had been shot and that they bore signs of beating.

Qabalan and Ghandour disappeared Monday after leaving their homes in the West Beirut district of Wata al-Mseitbeh and going for a drive.

The police and security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to the media. No group has claimed responsibility for abducting or killing the two.

Both Qabalan and Ghandour were Sunni Muslims whose families have ties to the Progressive Socialist Party of Druse leader Walid Jumblatt. After news of their death, Jumblatt urged supporters to remain calm and Education Minister Khaled Qabbani said public and private schools and universities would close Friday in mourning.

"Let us allow the judiciary and investigation to run their course so that we don't fall into the trap of political rumors. Let us remove politics from this incident," Jumblatt said in a telephone interview with the local Future TV station.

The deaths came at a time of heightened political and sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where deep scars remain from the 1975-90 civil war that was marked by kidnappings and violent disappearances.

Hezbollah strongly denounced the "horrific killing."

The Hezbollah-led opposition, which is pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian, has been campaigning with protests and sit-ins in Beirut since Dec. 1 to oust the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. The tensions have turned violent on several occasions and clashes between rival camps in December and January claimed nine lives.

Following news of the killings, army troops fanned out in armored personnel carriers and on foot in Wata al-Mseitbeh neighborhood where scores of angry youths started gathering late Thursday around the homes of Qabalan and Ghandour.

Witnesses said some called for revenge. Army troops fired in the air to disperse a small group of men who used garbage containers to try to block entrances to the neighborhood, dominated by Druse and Sunni Muslims.

Earlier Thursday, some 30 pupils of the Wata al-Mseitbeh Government School, which Ghandour attended, staged a half-hour sit-in outside the school to demand the 12-year-old's release.

"Let us learn. Let us live. The kidnapping of Ziad Ghandour is a crime against childhood," read some of the pamphlets carried by the students.

The military and police had launched a nationwide search and set up checkpoints in and around Beirut. Panic engulfed several neighborhoods and prompted parents to rush to schools Thursday to take their children home.

Saniora, who had earlier described the incident as a terrorist act, appealed for calm after the news of the killing.

"This act aims at dragging the Lebanese toward civil strife," he told LBC television. "We are in need of calm, patience and discipline."

Lebanon's most senior Muslim Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, said the abduction was a "major crime whose perpetrators should be prosecuted."

President Emile Lahoud urged that all security measures be taken to prevent "any repercussions of this deplorable incident." He said the situation in Lebanon "cannot bear such acts that harm stability and further ... increase tension and rekindle strife."

Defense Minister Elias Murr said the two might have been killed in revenge for the death of a 29-year-old Shiite Hezbollah supporter, Adnan Shamas, during January's sectarian clashes. Media reports at the time suggested Shamas was killed by members of Jumblatt's anti-Syrian PSP, and mourners at his funeral called for revenge.

Murr said Shamas' relatives had fled their homes, reinforcing suspicions they may be behind the killings.

But the Shamas family said the kidnapping had nothing to do with this and called on the captors of the Qabalan and Ghandour to release them.

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Associated Press writer Zeina Karam contributed to this report from Beirut, Lebanon.