REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIRUT - US Senator John McCain was photographed during a trip to Syria with a man implicated in the kidnapping by Syrian opposition group of 11 Lebanese Shi'ite pilgrims a year ago, a Lebanese newspaper said on Thursday.

McCain, a Republican, has been an outspoken advocate for US military aid to the opposition's fighting President Bashar al-Assad and made a short, highly publicised trip to meet opposition's commanders in Syria three days ago.

He has insisted that the United States could locate the "right people" to help among opposition's ranks infiltrated with radicalised Islamists.

However, he may have crossed paths with men linked to a group notorious in the region for kidnapping the pilgrims, the Daily Star said. The paper said that as well as McCain's photographs with those commanders, one image showed the face of Mohammad Nour - identified by two freed hostages as the chief spokesman and photographer for the Northern Storm brigade that kidnapped them.

The image demonstrates the difficulty of identifying who the West might want to deal with and could possibly further inflame the delicate sectarian balance in a conflict that is spilling over Lebanon's borders. A spokesman for McCain said none of the people he met identified themselves as Nour and it had not been his intention to meet anyone of that name.

"A number of the Syrians who greeted Senator McCain upon his arrival in Syria asked to take pictures with him, and as always, the senator complied. If the individual photographed with Senator McCain is in fact Mohammad Nour, that is regrettable," spokesman Brian Rogers said.

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