US embassy attacker had also shot at embassies in Beirut

The man who opened fire at the U.S. embassy in Awkar following a dispute with a guard had also shot at a compound containing foreign embassies in Beirut, the Internal Security Forces said on Thursday.

“Following further interrogation, he also confessed to shooting at the embassies compound in the Zokak al-Blat area on the night of August 25, 2023, justifying what he did by saying that he had a verbal clash with a convoy that was passing several days earlier on the Ring highway after which the convoy continued its journey and entered the aforementioned compound,” an ISF statement said.

The confession was confirmed after “comparing the confiscated weapon to the previously-seized empty bullet cartridges found at the site of the shooting near the compound,” the ISF added.

The man, a 26-year-old delivery driver, had earlier told interrogators that he fired nine gunshots at the U.S. embassy in Awkar because the guards had insulted him two months earlier, when he came to deliver an order.

The man had also visited Poland in 2021 in a bid to obtain asylum. “During his presence there, a dispute erupted between him and a Polish officer, who beat him up and insulted him, before he was deported to Lebanon,” an ISF statement issued last month said.

“Upon his return, he requested a new passport from the General Directorate of General Security, and after it refrained from granting him a passport according to his testimony, he opened fire on the building of the General Directorate of General Security in Adliyeh three times -- on Nov. 5, 2022, Nov. 28, 2022 and Dec. 9, 2022,” the statement said.

The man’s September 20 attack on the U.S. embassy coincided with the 39th anniversary of the 1984 suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy compound in Awkar which killed 14 people and the attacker.