Saqr Releases Five Men Detained over Choueifat Bombing

State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr ordered on Thursday the release of five people detained over the Choueifat bombing.

According to the state-run National News Agency, investigations with the five suspects showed that they have nothing to do with the Monday's blast and have no ties with the suicide bomber.

Earlier on Thursday, Saqr stressed that three suspects out of the five have no links to the suicide bomber.

“The men were referred to the the Army Intelligence Directorate for further questioning over the mystery of selling a Kalashnikov by the taxi driver,” al-Joumhouria newspaper, published on Thursday, quoted Saqr as saying.

Security sources told the daily that the three men, including the taxi driver, who transported the suicide bomber from Khaldah to Choueifat denied to the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau their prior knowledge to the suicide bomber.

“A dispute erupted between the suicide bomber and the taxi driver A. Gh., prompting him to get down from the car,” the sources said.

The sources pointed out that the suicide bomber forgot his Kalashnikov in the taxi and after the driver found it, he sold it in cooperation with the other two detained men.

Several people blocked the Khaldah – Ouzai road on Wednesday night with burning tires to protest the detention of the taxi driver, several hours after Saqr ordered the arrest of the three men.

On Monday, a suicide bomber blew himself up on board a minibus south of Beirut Monday killing himself and wounding two people.

The blast is the fifth to hit Lebanon this year, and comes after at least four people were killed on Saturday in a suicide bombing in the eastern town of Hermel.

Choueifat lies south of Beirut, not far from the suburbs of the city, which have been targeted in multiple bomb attacks in past months.

Explosions in Lebanon have created a climate of fear in the country, with residents increasingly nervous about unfamiliar cars and certain neighborhoods.

Many have targeted strongholds of Hizbullah, which has drawn the ire of Sunni extremist groups in part because of its role fighting alongside the regime in Syria.