Beirut: Lebanon’s interior minister says the country’s police intelligence played a major role in foiling a plot to bring down an Emirati passenger plane that was supposed to take off from Australia.
Nouhad Machnouk told reporters that four Lebanese-Australian brothers, including one who is in detention in Lebanon, had plotted to blow up the plane with a bomb hidden inside a large Barbie doll.
Speaking to told the Saudi-owned television station Al Arabiya Al Hadath he said the bomber had planned to blow up a plane bound for Abu Dhabi.
Australian authorities have said they thwarted a credible terrorist plot to down an airplane by smuggling a device onboard.
They have provided few details, including the precise nature of the threat or any airlines involved.
Machnouk said two other brothers are held in Australia while the fourth is a senior member of Daesh based in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.
Earlier this month an Australian man was detained in Sydney during raids to disrupt what authorities described as a Daesh-inspired plot to bomb an Etihad Airways flight.
