Rival Lebanese leaders urge calm after two kidnapped

BEIRUT, Apr 25 (Reuters) Rival Lebanese leaders urged calm today after two Sunni Muslim government supporters were kidnapped in what was believed to be retaliation for the killing earlier this year of a Shi'ite opposition activist.

Police reported that Ziad Qabalan, 25, and Ziad Ghandour, 12, went missing on Monday and their vehicle was found abandoned in a Shi'ite neighbourhood of Beirut on Tuesday.

Ghandour's father and Qabalan are members of the Progressive Socialist Party of pro-government Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

Lebanese media reported that the two had been kidnapped by members of a Shi'ite clan who had vowed to avenge the killing of their relative in clashes between government and opposition supporters at a Beirut university in January.

The Shi'ite Shamas clan named by the media condemned the kidnapping. ''(The clan) does not claim responsibility for it regardless of whether the perpetrator or perpetrators were members ... or not,'' a statement in the clan's name said.

Sporadic violence between the mainly Sunni, Druze and Christian ruling coalition and mainly Shi'ite and Christian opposition have killed 10 people since the opposition launched a street campaign to topple the government in December.

The political crisis, Lebanon's worst since the 1975-1990 civil war, has at times threatened to spill into Sunni-Shi'ite strife as sectarian tensions run high.

Jumblatt urged calm after visiting the families of the two missing people. Saad al-Hariri, the Sunni leader of the anti-Syrian majority coalition, called on all leaders to help secure their release.

The opposition's main Shi'ite parties, Hezbollah and Amal, denounced the ''very dangerous'' kidnapping and urged the security forces to liberate the two and punish their captors.

Reuters RS GC2354