Baby-selling gang arrested in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Syrian troops have arrested five people in Syrian-controlled eastern Lebanon on charges of kidnapping and selling a number of children for $500 each, police said Wednesday.

Police said a Syrian patrol in the Bekaa Valley caught Haitham Nasereddine, 27, as he was trying to snatch a baby from the Al Habshi family as it played in front of the family home in the village of Deir Al Ahmar, east of Beirut.

The Syrian troops handed over Haitham to Lebanese authorities, they said. Haitham confessed that he and four other people formed a gang for kidnapping children, they said.

The kidnapped children later were delivered to George Fouad Abu Jawdeh, who owns a snack shop in the Christian resort of Broumana, 12 miles east of Beirut, for $500 for each child.

The detainees said Abu Jawdeh funded the gang and handled the sales, police said but gave no other details about the number of kidnapped children and their location.

Earlier, Syrian troops foiled another attempt by four brothers from the Abdel Rahim family to kidnap a 10-month-old baby in the Christian village of Zahleh, 26 miles east of Beirut.

An unspecified number of children disappeared during 15 years of civil war and were smuggled outside the country under false names. Many of them were taken to Cyprus for adoption by European couples who sometimes paid more than $5,000 for a baby.