by arabnews.com — LONDON: Their country’s economy may be collapsing around them, but the Lebanese are still the people most likely to …

by Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English -- The US is considering sanctions on top Lebanese officials for their continued obstruction of electing a new president in the country, a top State Department official said Wednesday. Meanwhile, the top two US House Foreign Affairs Committee lawmakers urged the Biden administration to sanction Lebanese individuals for corruption and to “make clear to Lebanon’s political class that the status quo is not acceptable.” Since last October, Lebanon has had no president and a fully functioning government. Pro-Syria parties, including Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, are backing Sleiman Frangieh, who has long boasted of his close ties with Bashar al-Assad. Opposition groups and the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, have reportedly agreed to endorse Jihad Azour, a former finance minister and current International Monetary Fund (IMF) employee.

During a Senate committee hearing on the Middle East, the top US diplomat for the region said the US was considering the possibility of sanctions. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said Washington was working with regional and European partners to push the Lebanese parliament to do its job. “It’s a collective effort,” Leaf said.

Separately, the members of Congress slammed Lebanon’s central bank governor, Riad Salameh, as well as those responsible for the catastrophic Beirut Port blast in 2020. Salameh has an Interpol arrest warrant out for him, and there are charges against him from Germany and France over alleged corruption.

by middleeastmonitor.com — The US is working on building a new regional hub for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Lebanon, within …

DUBAI/BEIRUT, (Reuters) - Lebanon's army intelligence freed a Saudi national who was abducted on Sunday in Beirut and also arrested some of those involved, the army announced on Tuesday. An online army statement said that Saudi citizen Mashari al-Mutairi had been freed in an operation along the Lebanese border with Syria. Saudi's state-run Al Ekhbariya television station reported late on Monday that a man working for Saudi Arabian Airlines had been kidnapped in the Lebanese capital on Sunday, and that those responsible had demanded a $400,000 ransom.

In a press conference at the Saudi embassy after Mutairi's release, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said that no ransom was paid, and that Lebanese security forces had taken nine people into custody over the kidnapping. Mawlawi said the incident would not impact diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Ties between the two countries withered in 2021, when the kingdom and other Gulf states withdrew their envoys following years of frustration at the growing influence of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement over Lebanon's state. They sent ambassadors back to Beirut in April 2022.