Bomb-Laden Car Dismantled, Stolen Vehicles Seized in Arsal

The army dismantled on Monday a bomb-laden car in the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal.

"The army's airborne regiment located a booby-trapped car in the Wadi Hmayyed area in Arsal,” the state-run National News Agency reported in the evening.

The military institution later issued a communique detailing that the seized car was a black Honda CRV.

A security official told Agence France Presse that as the booby-trapped car neared the army checkpoint, its driver got off the vehicle and ran away.

Al-Jadeed remarked that it contained around 200 kilograms of explosives.

“Troops cordoned off the region where the car was located and a military expert was called in to dismantle the bomb,” the NNA said.

However, the same source later said that due to the difficulty of transferring the necessary tools to be used in dismantling the bomb, the car was taken to an army barracks.

"But troops were targeted with gunshots while en route to the barracks," the NNA noted.

Meanwhile, the army fired gunshots at a second car coming from Syria that did not comply to orders and stop at a checkpoint in Arsal.

Bullets hit the car's wheels, which disabled its movement and allowed arresting three Syrian nationals who were inside it, according to the NNA.

Earlier in the day, the Internal Security Forces announced that it had seized a number of stolen vehicles in a Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa town of Arsal.

Four stolen cars were discovered in a refugee camp in Arsal after an ISF raid in the area, said the security forces in a statement.

They discovered a white Opel vehicle and a white Chevrolet pick up truck, both of which did not have a license plate.

The other two vehicles were a black Kia and a grey Renault carrying a license plate of 441292/B.

Investigations are underway in order to determine where the vehicles were brought from, who their owners are, and what they were going to be used for, continued the ISF.

The security forces had seized on Saturday six stolen SUVs in a garage, belonging to slain terror suspect Sami al-Atrash, in Wadi Hmeid in Arsal.

M.T./ S.D.B.

Y.R.