Duroy Hotel Terrorists Reportedly Monitored by General Security for a Week

The General Security Directorate reportedly began monitoring the terrorist group that was busted in Duroy Hotel in Beirut's Raouche area a week before raiding it.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Thursday, the General Security investigations proved the group had links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The network was allegedly ordered to carry out a double suicide bombing in a prominent restaurant in Beirut and a Hotel when people would be watching a world cup game and the two place would be crowded.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Saudi man blew himself up in Hotel Duroy as security forces stormed his room, killing himself and wounding several others.

An accomplice of the suicide bomber who was also in the room survived the blast but was severely injured. A third person is on the run.

As Safir daily reported that the General Security's Elite Force raid was directly supervised by the directorate's chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim.

A string of security incidents over the past week has rattled Lebanon, and Beirut in particular, after what had been a calm and stable stretch of several months.

The police raid followed the arrest last Friday in a hotel in the nearby Hamra district of the capital of a Frenchman of Comoran origin on suspicion of plotting to carry out suicide bombings in Lebanon on behalf of the jihadist ISIL group.

That is the same group that has spearheaded the offensive by Sunni Arab militants that has swept up a big swathe of northern and north-central Iraq over the past two weeks and also made gains in neighboring Syria.

On Monday, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a checkpoint outside a cafe just after midnight in the Tayyouneh area. The bombing killed one person and wounded 20.

Another bombing in eastern Lebanon last week killed a police officer and wounded several others.

Syria's civil war has spilled into neighboring Lebanon on numerous occasions and inflamed sectarian tensions. A series of car bombs have struck Shiite areas across Lebanon, killing dozens of people. The operation also came amid mounting regional tensions over the events unfolding in Iraq.

H.K.

G.K.