15 Suspected Terrorists Charged with Assassination Plot

The military prosecutor charged on Thursday 15 suspected terrorists for plotting to carry out attacks and target a top security official in northern Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said Judge Saqr Saqr charged the suspects, only six of whom are in detention, for belonging to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and Jund al-Sham in northern Lebanon.

The six men have been apprehended in the northern region of Qalamoun, it said, although the Lebanese army claimed on Wednesday the arrest of five suspected terrorists.

It identified then as Wassim Ahmed al-Qass, Wissam Ahmed al-Qass, Dani Ahmed al-Qass, Amjad Nouhad al-Khatib and Nabil Kamel Bayda.

The suspects attended training sessions on preparing explosives, using arms and booby-trapping cars, the agency said.

The charges also include complicity with a plot to assassinate a top General Security officer and to carry out terrorist attacks across Lebanon, NNA added.

Saqr referred the suspects to First Military Examining Magistrate Riyad Abou Ghida.

Al-Joumhouria daily said Thursday that the target of the plot could either be the chief of the army's intelligence in northern Lebanon Brig. Gen. Amer al-Hassan or Lt. Col. Khattar Nasereddine, who heads the General Security bureau in the North.

G.K.

M.T.