The Lebanese army said Sunday it arrested four people over the weekend for involvement in terrorist acts as part of the military’s open battle against militant groups seeking to destabilize the country.
Mohammad Ali Shukkor, a Lebanese who has two arrest warrants against him for involvement in terrorist acts, was arrested in the Haret Hreik neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs Saturday night, the army said in a statement.
It added that he was accompanied by Syrian nationals Ahmad Rahmo Sattouf and Ghossoun Ibrahim al-Hussein who were also arrested. Money and counterfeit bank checks in Shukkor’s possession were confiscated, the statement said.
Army soldiers also arrested Ahmad Mustafa Kahwagi, a Lebanese, Sunday after raiding his house in the Beirut suburb of Sabra. He is wanted on several arrest warrants for involvement in terrorist acts and shootings, the statement said. It added that cannabis and other drugs were confiscated from his house.
Elsewhere, an unknown assailant threw a hand grenade at an army vehicle stationed in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood in the northern city of Tripoli at midnight Saturday, slightly injuring citizens, the state-run National News Agency reported Sunday.
The attack came amid a high security alert in Tripoli following the January ten deadly twin suicide bombings in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood that killed at least nine people and wounded more than 30 others in the most serious setback to a government security plan that restored law and order to the strife-wracked city last year.
The army has stepped up its preemptive action against terror cells in the past few days that have led to the arrested of several suspects linked to militant groups and the foiling of a string of suicide attacks.
The army Saturday arrested Wassim Khodr Omar after raiding a number of houses in Bab al-Tabbaneh. A quantity of military-grade weapons, ammunition, hand grenades and communication equipment were confiscated during these raids, according to an army statement.
The army also arrested Mohammad Jihad Ghaddara, a Lebanese, in the Wadi Hmayyed near the northeastern town of Arsal Saturday, for participating in terrorist attacks against the Army and the Internal Security Forces, the statement said.
Meanwhile, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai visited the bombing site in Jabal Mohsen to offer his condolences to Sheikh Assad Assi, head of the Muslim Alawite Council, and families of the victims who died in the twin blasts.
“This visit is to show solidarity with you. It is a visit in which we again stress our unity and solidarity,” Rai told the families of the victims. He praised the families of the victims for foiling plans to incite sectarian strife by the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in a crowded cafe in Jabal Mohsen.“In your heart, there is a torch of forgiveness, awareness and realization. Rest assured, all of Lebanon appreciate how you had extinguished the spark of evil and revenge,” Rai said.
The patriarch urged the government to assume its responsibility toward Tripoli’s development, saying poverty and deprivation are destabilizing factors in the pursuit of peace.
“In order to confront those aiming at instigating divisions, it is unacceptable for Tripoli to be a city of poverty and deprivation because there is no peace where there is deprivation,” he said. He added that there could be no honorable life without the Army and security forces.
After his visit to Jabal Mohsen, Rai headed to the Karami residence in Tripoli to pay condolences over the death of ex-premier Omar Karami.
Separately, Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi told the relatives of Islamist inmates at Roumieh Prison that the prisoners’ trials would wrap up within two months.
Speaking at the meeting held at Tripoli’s As-Salam Mosque, Rifi said it was impossible “to undo in three months what the Syrian regime has done over a period of 30 years.” He told the relatives of Islamist prisoners that the issue needed more time and pledged to follow up on the cases and organize family visits shortly, the NNA reported.
Rifi said the two-month period was determined based on the delay caused by detainees’ refusal to appear in court sessions.
Last Monday, security forces stormed the notorious Roumieh Prison and dismantled a terror operations room run by Islamist militants and transferred them to a more tightly controlled jail block.
Rifi said the prisoners would be returned to their original block after repairs were made and fixed landlines installed to allow them to make calls in a way that was consistent with the law. Inmates’ relatives had protested in Tripoli Friday over the alleged abuse of some prisoners during the raid on the prison, contradicting an official position that no one was harmed during the operation.
