Report: Militants to Target Mourners Commemorating Ashura Occasion
Terrorists are planning to carry out sabotage operations targeting mourners commemorating the occasion of Ashura that begins on October 26, Ad Diyar newspaper reported on Sunday.
According to the newspaper, security forces are taking “extraordinary” measures in particular in the southern province of Nabatieh, which usually hosts the biggest such rally in the southern part of the country.
Ashura marks the death of Imam Hussein over 1,300 years ago.
The report said that the security agencies, including the Lebanese army and Internal Security Forces, will cooperate in monitoring the situation.
The Lebanese Armed Forces will deploy heavily in the targeted areas to control the security situation, especially after threats by Abou Malek al-Talleh, the so-called emir of al-Nusra in Qalamun, to carry out security attacks during Ashura.
Hizbullah has sent fighters to Syria to back President Bashar Assad's forces against rebels trying to remove him from power. The armed intervention in Syria earned the Shiite group the enmity of Syria's predominantly Sunni rebels. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Over the past year, Syrian troops and Hizbullah fighters have captured most of the towns and villages in Syria's mountainous Qalamun region along the Lebanon border, depriving the rebels of residential areas where they can stay during the winter.
Hizbullah fighters have also clashed with jihadists, who infiltrated Lebanese territories.
Last week, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra Front, attacked positions manned by Hizbullah on the outskirts of Brital, killing several of its fighters.
There have been reports of other skirmishes between Hizbullah and militants along the Lebanon-Syria border.
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