Jomaa Interrogated at Military Court, Denies Belonging to Islamic State

Imad Ahmed Jomaa, a member of the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front, was interrogated on Thursday at the Military Tribunal.

His lawyer, Tareq Shandab, stated after the hearing that his client denied belonging to the Islamic State.

“Everything that was leaked about him is untrue,” he stressed.

Jomaa's arrest prompted clashes on August 2 between the army and Islamist militants in the northeastern border town of Arsal, which left 19 soldiers, 16 civilians, and dozens of jihadists dead.

The clashes ended on August 7 with a truce negotiated by Lebanese Sunni clerics, but the gunmen withdrew from the area taking around 34 captive security personnel with them.

A few of the captives have since been released.

LBCI television reported on Monday that Jomaa and the Islamists were seeking to establish an Islamic "emirate" straddling northern and eastern regions and linked to Syria's Qalamun with Sirajeddine Zureiqat, a spokesman of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, as its "emir,"

"Jomaa confessed during preliminary investigations that Abou Malek al-Souri, emir of the al-Nusra Front in Qalamun, and the 29 armed groups under his command had agreed before Jomaa's capture to wage a joint attack on Arsal,” it said.

Jomaa was known to be a member of al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syria franchise, but a video that surfaced in recent weeks shows him pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, which reportedly appointed him as the leader of the extremist Fajr al-Islam Brigade.

M.T.

G.K.