Pro-Syria demonstration, Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: wiki commons.

NY Times – Sectarian tensions escalated across Lebanon on Thursday as Sunnis in border towns threatened Shiites after several Shiite families who had already abducted more than 30 Syrians added several more to their hostage total.

The expanded kidnapping wave occurred as the war in Syria staggered on — with battles in Aleppo and dozens of bodies found in a landfill outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to activists — and it suggested that the threat of regional chaos was increasing.

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