BEIRUT: Lebanese security forces freed four Syrian hostages in a raid in Beirut against a powerful clan which kidnapped them last month, a member of the clan said on Tuesday.

A Turkish hostage was wounded in the raid. "We were told that the Turk was shot and wounded, either in his chest or shoulder," Maher Meqdad of the Meqdad clan told Reuters.

A security source said four people had been freed in the overnight raids in the south of the Lebanese capital, but did not confirm the report about the Turkish captive.

The Meqdad clan said it abducted more than 20 people, including a Turkish national, in mid-August in response to the capture of one of its kinsmen in Damascus by Syrian rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. –AGENCIES