KIDNAPPING VICTIM REUNITED WITH HER CHILDREN

After a botched TV retrieval, the family is together at last

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Ten years after her ex took their children to live in Lebanon against her wishes, Aussie woman Sally Faulkner recently celebrated Christmas with them for the first time in a decade.

"We've missed out on so much together," says the brave mum, who never gave up on trying to bring her two children back home to Queensland.

Sally's plight became global news in 2016 when she was arrested in Lebanon for attempting to recover her then-five-year-old daughter Lahela and her two-year-old brother Noah.

The previous year, her former partner Ali Elamine had taken the two kids to his native Beirut on a holiday and refused to return them.

Aussie TV network Nine enlisted former soldier Adam Whittington, founder of Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI), to snatch back the kids in a desperate bid to bring them home. The mission was filmed for current affairs show 60 Minutes.

But the recovery effort went horribly wrong and it was later revealed that Elamine was tracking the team's progress using their daughter's iPad, which was connected to the email account Sally used to coordinate the operation.