BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army has stepped up its preemptive strikes against terror cells, a senior military official said Friday, as troops arrested two alleged members of a militant ring in the northern city of Tripoli, in the latest crackdown that has foiled a string of suicide attacks.
“The Army has increased its preemptive operations against terror groups which has resulted in thwarting a series of suicide attacks in the country,” the official told The Daily Star. “The Army’s measures have been taken based on intelligence information.”
Asked if Lebanon faced the threat of a new wave of suicide bombings, the official said: “The Army is fully ready to thwart any attempt by terror groups. That’s why it has been conducting preemptive operations against these groups throughout the country.”
His remarks come after last week’s deadly twin suicide blasts in Tripoli and Monday’s successful security operation that dismantled a terror operations room run by Islamist militants in the notorious Roumieh Prison, transferring them to a more tightly controlled jail block.
The raid on Roumieh Prison’s Block B, which held mainly Islamist militants, came after information was gathered that some inmates had been in contact with the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at a crowded café in Tripoli’s Jabal Mohsen neighborhood, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 30 others.
Earlier Friday, the Army arrested two alleged members of a terror ring in Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood, a security source said.
The source told The Daily Star that a number of explosive belts in addition to newly made bombs, ammunition, grenades and military equipment were seized during the “extraordinary military operation” on the terror cell hideout. The source said the suspects, identified as Jalal Nassouh and Mustafa Helweh, were planning terrorist attacks.
The Army did not confirm the arrests, but said in a statement a military patrol raided the house of wanted terror suspect Othman Mohammad Abdullah in Bab al-Tabbaneh.
The suspect was not in the house during the raid late Thursday night, but soldiers seized an explosive belt, light arms and ammunition, hand grenades, electric cables, a wireless detonator, various military equipment and the flags of an unidentified terrorist organization, the statement said.
Elsewhere, Army Intelligence discovered ammunition concealed in an old well in the northern district of Koura, the National News Agency reported.
In another statement, the Army said that when a military force intervened Thursday night to stop a fight between citizens over a family dispute in the Beddawi-Tripoli area, during which gunmen threw a hand grenade, it came under fire by a wanted man, Khaled Zakariya al-Khaled. The attack prompted the military to respond in kind, which resulted in wounding Khaled.
While Khaled was taken to a hospital, the Army arrested another wanted man during the clash, identified as Khaled Akram Haj Deeb, the statement said.
It added that the Army also arrested Omar Ali Hujeiri in the northeastern town of Arsal Thursday for attempting to smuggle foodstuffs and equipment to the town’s outskirts in a camouflaged manner using a farming tractor.
An Army patrol Friday arrested a wanted man, identified as Mohammad Ali Allaw, in the Haret Hreik neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs for opening fire on soldiers in the Merj-Hermel area on June 6, the statement said. It added that an Army patrol also arrested Juan Fawzi Ahmad, a Syrian, in Haret Hreik, who was wanted on a warrant for attacking an Army patrol in the town of Naameh, south of Beirut, on Oct. 8.The Army announced Thursday it had thwarted more terror plots, this time dismantling a Mercedes rigged with 120 kilograms of explosives on the outskirts of Arsal.
The Army also said it arrested Bassam Houssam al-Naboush, Elie Tony al-Warraq and Mohannad Ali Abdel-Kader who were plotting a series of terrorist attacks against “Army locations and residential areas” following the Tripoli bombings.
It said the three suspects, who had been using fake Syrian and Palestinian IDs, were linked to Shadi Mawlawi and Osama Mansour, two of the most-wanted Islamist fugitives who, according to Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, are hiding in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon.
The suspects had pledged allegiance to “terrorist organizations and participated in the fighting in Syria as well as in attacks on the Army,” the Army said.
When asked what the Army will do to apprehend Mawlawi and Mansour, who fled Tripoli after the military crushed Islamist militants in the city in October, the military official said: “We are working on this issue.” He declined to give more details.
Meanwhile, Warraq, a 22-year-old Lebanese Christian who was one of the three terror suspects arrested over plotting suicide attacks, had been “brainwashed” by the Nusra Front and became friendly with Mawlawi, his neighbors in Tripoli said. “Elie used to hang out with Mawlawi and a bunch of associates in Qibbeh [Tripoli] and has indulged in drugs and alcohol since then,” one neighbor said, speaking to the The Daily Star on condition of anonymity.
“And when Mawlawi moved to Bab al-Tabbaneh, Elie moved with them, too,” the neighbor added.
Many fellow citizens living in the Qibbeh-Majdlaya area of Tripoli, the same neighborhood where Warraq grew up in, said the young man belongs to a Christian family who originally hails from the village of Charbila in the northern Akkar province.
They said Warraq had been brainwashed and had probably made a verbal commitment to the Islamist group to convert to Islam ahead of a pledge of allegiance to the Nusra Front. Warraq’s parents refused to speak to the press following their son’s arrest. – Additional reporting by Antoine Amrieh
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