Army Command: Atrash Confesses to Transporting Explosives-Laden Cars to Beirut
The Army Command announced on Thursday that detained cleric Sheikh Omar al-Atrash had confessed during investigations to taking part in plans to carry out car bomb attacks in Lebanon.
It said in a statement that he confessed to transporting explosives-laden cars to Beirut.
State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr later charged Atrash and 12 Lebanese and Syrian suspects with belonging to al-Qaida and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and of committing terrorist acts.
Atrash confessed that he was transporting the booby-trapped vehicles to a Syrian national called Abou Khaled who in turn was planning to hand them to a terrorist called Naim Abbas in cooperation with a man identified as Omar Saleh.
The cleric also transported explosive belts, hand grenades, and different ammunition.
In addition, he transported in one of the vehicles two suicide bombers equipped with explosive belts.
The bombers were killed at the Ouwwali and Majdelyoun army checkpoints on undisclosed dates.
Atrash confessed that he had transported suicide bombers from different Arab nationalities to Syria.
They were handed over to the Nusra Front group in Syria, said the Army Command statement.
Moreover, the cleric transported from Syria four rockets that were fired from al-Hosh region towards Israel on August 22, 2013.
He had received four new rockets, from a man called Ahmed Taha, a few days before his arrest.
The Army Intelligence added that further investigations will be held with Atrash in order to uncover all other operations that the group he belongs to had carried out.
The cleric was arrested last week.
Media reports had linked him to car bombings that had taken place in recent months in Dahieh, Hizbullah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs.
Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon -- believed to be the local branch of Syria's Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist rebel movement – had recently warned that attacks on Hizbullah-controlled areas will continue until Lebanon releases Sunni Islamist prisoners and the party withdraws from Syria.
Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon warned Sunnis against "approaching or residing in or near (Hizbullah's) bases, and (to) avoid gathering around its meeting points."
The war in Syria has inflamed sectarian tensions in Lebanon, with Hizbullah backing President Bashar Assad's regime and many Sunnis supporting the rebellion against him.
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