8 Charged for Nusra Front Membership

The military prosecutor on Friday charged in absentia two Lebanese and six Syrians for belonging to the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.

The state-run National News Agency said Judge Saqr Saqr issued the charges against the eight suspects accused of belonging to an armed terrorist organization with the aim of plotting terrorist attacks.

The charges include arms possession and shooting Lebanese soldiers in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood of the northern city of Tripoli, NNA said.

Saqr referred the file of the suspects to the first military examining magistrate, Judge Riyad Abou Ghida, the agency added.

Sunni militants, including al-Nusra Front, have in the past weeks and months carried out several suicide bombings and car bomb attacks in Shiite-dominated towns and suburbs of Beirut that are Hizbullah strongholds.

They claim the assaults come in retaliation to Hizbullah's support to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The party's fighters have been instrumental to Assad's success on the battlefield.

G.K.

M.T.