Terror Detainee Miqati Says Constantly Communicated with Asir, Reveals Plot against Army

Ahmed Salim Miqati, a terror detainee, confessed during investigations that his group aimed at carrying out a wide-scale assault against the army, revealing that fugitive Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir is taking the Palestinian refugee camp Ain al-Hilweh, near the southern city of Sidon, as his refuge.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, Miqati surprised investigators with spilling out the roles of his accomplices.

“Don't hit me I will say everything I know,” Miqati told investigators.

Sources told the newspaper that the terror cell busted in the town of Assoun in the northern district of Dinniyeh plotted to carry out a series of attacks on the army in the northern district of Akkar, the capital Beirut and Sidon, and to encircle army posts in Tripoli, Assoun and Bakhoun.

Miqati revealed that the group of fugitives Shadi Mawlawi and Oussama Mansour were plotting to participate in the attacks against the army in the coastal city of Tripoli, Assoun and Bakhoun.

Miqati also said that Mawlawi and Mansour were seeking to recruit more army soldiers to increase defections from the army.

Miqati was arrested in October in Assoun during a deadly army raid on an apartment that he and several militants had been residing in for several days. Three gunmen were killed in the operation, including defected soldier Abdul Qader Akkoumi.

The army has come under growing attacks across Lebanon by militants who accuse it of colluding with Hizbullah in its intervention in the Syrian conflict on the side of the regime.

Miqati also confessed to constantly contacting Salafist cleric al-Asir and former singer and fugitive Fadel Shaker, who have taken refuge in Ain al-Hilweh camp.

According to Miqati, Shaker had urged clerics to mediate with the army intelligence to decrease his sentence so that he hands himself over.

Shaker had fled justice more than a year ago following bloody incidents that erupted in Abra, a neighborhood in the city of Sidon, between the army and supporters of the al-Asir.

H.K.

G.K.