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Lebanon Cracks Qaida Cell Coming from Syria

Lebanon has cracked an al-Qaida cell affiliated with the notorious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and charged its members with attempting to stage terrorist operations, newspapers reported Saturday.
An Nahar said 13 militants had crossed the border into Lebanon after spending years in Syria. It quoted a security source as saying the cell's mission was to lay the infrastructure for the establishment of a Qaida network in Lebanon.

It said the militants coordinated directly with Zarqawi, the Qaida ring leader in Iraq.

In their efforts to lay out the foundation for the network, the militants had rented flats throughout the country and purchased arms and explosives, the paper said.

On Friday, Beirut's assistant military court prosecutor Ahmed Oweidat charged the 13 suspects with "establishing a gang to carry out terrorist acts, forging official and private documents and possessing unlicensed arms."

The 13 -- three Lebanese, seven Syrians, a Saudi, a Jordanian and a Palestinian -- were arrested two weeks ago in various parts of Lebanon, court officials said.

The arrests gained significance in light of Zarqawi's claim of responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel from south Lebanon last month.

In Israel Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said that a group of Palestinians arrested in northern Lebanon after attempting to smuggle arms by ferryboat last week were also Qaida followers. The fighters admitted after their capture that they were planning to stage attacks against Israeli targets.

The latest arrests in Lebanon are also linked to the murder of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri. Khaled Taha, one of the ring members who remains at large, is believed to have recruited Ahmed Abu Adas, the militant who made a dubious taped confession about his involvement in the Hariri murder.

An Nahar quoted a source as saying police was close to arresting Taha but his capture was impeded by Friday's report in as Safir about the arrest of the remaining members of his cell.

The London-based Al Hayat newspaper quoted sources in the U.S. National Security Council as saying they have reports that indicate a shift in Qaida's strategy to enlarge its scope of operations to include Israel and other Middle Eastern countries beside Iraq.

The sources said the change in strategy came as an attempt by the group to improve its image in the Islamic world after it had been severely criticized for targeting civilians in Iraq, Egypt and Jordan.

Beirut, 14 Jan 06, 09:36


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