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Lebanon arrests militants behind Syria attacks

Lebanese authorities arrested five militants suspected of involvement in attacks in Syria and Lebanon and of belonging to an Al Qaida-inspired Islamist group, security sources said on Monday.

  • Agencies
  • Published: 14:43 November 10, 2008
  • Gulf News

Beirut: Lebanese authorities arrested five militants suspected of involvement in attacks in Syria and Lebanon and of belonging to an Al Qaida-inspired Islamist group, security sources said on Monday.

Army troops and security men made the arrests in the past four days in the northern city of Tripoli and the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Beddawi. They coordinated with the Palestinian Fatah faction, which captured and handed over a suspect in the southern camp of Ain Al Hilweh, the sources said.

All the militants are said to belong to Fatah Al Islam, a group crushed by the army last year in a 15-week battle in the Nahr Al Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. At least 430 people were killed, including 170 soldiers and 220 militants.

Syrian state television last week showed 12 alleged members of Fatah Al Islam confessing that they helped plan a suicide car bombing in Damascus that killed 17 people in September.

Last month Lebanon's public prosecutor accused 34 men, including Syrians, Saudis, Lebanese and Palestinians, of belonging to an Islamist cell behind bomb attacks on the army.

These included attacks in Tripoli on August 13 and September 20 which killed a total of 22 people, 14 of them soldiers.

Syria linked those attacks to the car bombing in Damascus.

Lebanese Interior Minister Ziad Baroud was visiting the Syrian capital on Monday to discuss border and security issues.

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