Naharnet

Berri Confirms Terrorist Group Entered Lebanon to Carry Out Political Assassinations

Speaker Nabih Berri confirmed during Wednesday’s parliamentary meeting a list of politicians and figures targeted by extremist groups, describing the threat as serious and dangerous.

According to NBN, Berri called on security agencies to follow up the issue.

Local newspapers reported on Wednesday that international countries warned Lebanese officials that a terrorist group - linked to an extremist organization, has infiltrated the country recently to carry out “sabotage” operations.

According to As Safir newspaper, the information coincided with similar data obtained by Lebanese security agencies.

Speaker Nabih Berri and several other senior Lebanese officials might be the target of a security threat by the terrorist group.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea escaped an assassination attempt on April 4.

In January, security agencies urged Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat to take precautions as they might be the target of an assassination plot.

On Tuesday, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported that the security agencies succeeded in the past few days in uncovering a terrorist network with local, Arab, and European links.

It said that the confessions of one of the detainees led to the arrest of Sunni Islamist Shadi al-Mawlawi, a development which sparked armed clashes in the northern city of Tripoli over the weekend.

The General Security detained in Tripoli last week Hamza Mahmoud Tarbey whose confessions led to al-Mawlawi’s arrest, according to the daily.

The six-member network includes three Lebanese individuals and a national from each of Qatar, Palestine, and Jordan.

Military Tribunal Judge Saqr Saqr had charged on Monday al-Mawlawi and the five other network members with forming an armed terrorist group and undermining the authority of the state, as well as having links to the al-Qaida.

He later issued an arrest warrant against al-Mawlawi.


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