Lebanese, Syrian Held for Role in Dahieh Attack as Car, Money, IDs Seized
A Lebanese man and a Syrian man have been arrested over their role in plotting and financing the deadly Bourj al-Barajneh suicide bombings as a car and fake documents have been seized, security forces said on Sunday.
“Lebanese national Ibrahim Ahmed Rayed and Syrian citizen Mustafa Ahmed al-Jarf have been arrested,” the General Security said in a statement.
“During interrogation under the military prosecutor's supervision, the first man confessed to taking part, along with others, in the plotting for the terrorist suicide attack that occurred in Bourj al-Barajneh on November 12,” it added.
Rayed also confessed to having transferred one of the two suicide bombers from Syria to northern Lebanon, and then to Beirut, where he gave him explosives, fuses and light weapons, the statement said.
Rayed received his orders from “S Sh., one of the emirs (leaders) of the Islamic State group in Syria,” the General Security added.
It said the Lebanese man was also in charge of “overseeing the terrorist network that was operating in Tripoli, Ashrafieh and Bourj al-Barajneh.”
The Syrian detainee al-Jarf meanwhile confessed to transferring money to the network's members. The General Security said a large amount of money was seized in his possession.
“The rest of the terrorist network's members are being pursued,” it added.
Earlier on Sunday, agents from the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch raided the house of a suspect accused of helping the suicide bombers cross from Syria into Lebanon.
“Intelligence Branch agents raided in the northern Bekaa town of al-Labweh the house of the detainee A. S., who is suspected of having helped the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Bourj al-Barajneh in crossing from Syria into Lebanon via Arsal,” state-run National News Agency said.
It said the raiding force seized "fake Lebanese IDs, $450,000 in cash and a car suspected of having been used in the transfer of the terrorists.”
The detainee was arrested on Saturday while his father was arrested Sunday for further investigations, NNA added.
The developments come four days after two Islamic State suicide bombers killed 43 people and wounded around 239 others in the Beirut southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh, in the worst such attack in years.
On Sunday, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq announced that "the whole suicide bombing network and its supporters were arrested in the 48 hours following the explosion," calling the arrests "an extraordinary achievement."
"The detained include seven Syrians and two Lebanese, one of them a (would-be) suicide bomber and the other a trafficker who smuggled them across the border from Syria," Mashnouq said.
He said the Syrians were detained in a Palestinian refugee camp located in Bourj al-Barajneh and a flat in the capital's eastern district of Ashrafieh that had been used to prepare the explosive belts.
Security forces arrested the Lebanese would-be suicide attacker in the northern port city of Tripoli after he had failed to detonate his suicide belt, Mashnouq said.
The initial plan was apparently to send five suicide bombers to the Hizbullah-owned Great Prophet Hospital near the targeted Bourj al-Barajneh area, he said, but heavy security forced them to change the target to a densely populated area.
Y.R.
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