1982 kidnapping of Iranian diplomats

On 4 July 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, four Iranians traveling from Iran's embassy in Damascus to Beirut were stopped at the El Berbara checkpoint in northern Mount Lebanon. The men were Ahmad Motevaselian, military attaché at Iran's Beirut embassy and, according to the US State Department and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, commander of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps expeditionary force supporting Shia militias in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley; Seyed Mohsen Mousavi, chargé d'affaires at the embassy; Taghi Rastegar Moghadam, an embassy employee; and Kazem Akhavan, a photojournalist for the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). None of the four has been seen since.

The checkpoint was reportedly commanded by Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces. According to the online newspaper Rai al-Youm, individuals identified as "Akram" (Biar Rizq) and "Captain" (Abdeh Raji) were involved, with the latter commanding the checkpoint. Lebanese judiciary sources say the four were held under the supervision of Elie Hobeika, then a Phalangist, in Karantina, Beirut for twenty days before being moved to the Adonis prison in Beirut.

Two competing accounts of their fate have circulated for decades. Iranian officials, including former ambassadors to Lebanon and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, have asserted the men were handed to Israel and held alive in Israeli prisons, citing statements from released prisoners who claimed to have seen them at Atlit Prison. Israel has denied holding the men, saying it believes they were captured and executed shortly after abduction by a Lebanese militia. Geagea has said the Iranians died some time after capture. Robert Hatem, a former security chief for Hobeika known as "Cobra," said Hobeika was responsible for the group's "kidnapping and murder," and told Israeli agents, according to author Ronen Bergman's book The Secret War with Iran, that he had probably killed at least one of the men, Motevaselian, and recalled the execution in detail, including one man being killed immediately after being found to speak Arabic. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a belief that the men were buried at a site later destroyed by construction.

The case has become a recurring diplomatic issue between Iran, Lebanon, and Israel. It featured in indirect Hezbollah–Israel negotiations after the 2006 Lebanon War and in the 2008 Israel–Hezbollah prisoner exchange, during which Israel provided a report stating the four had been captured by Hobeika's Christian militia. Iranian officials have repeatedly pressed Israel and international bodies for further information, and Lebanon sent a 2008 letter to the United Nations confirming the abduction. According to Nazih Mansour, a former Lebanese parliamentarian and lawyer for one of the affected families, the case has become more political than judicial because some individuals involved, such as Geagea, later became prominent political figures. The disappearance is commemorated annually in Iran.