General Security Arrests Senior Ain el-Hilweh IS Official

A high-ranking official of the Islamic State extremist group has been arrested in Lebanon and he has confessed to plotting a wave of attacks in the country, the General Security said on Thursday.

The militant, a Palestinian national, confessed to being “the religious official of the terrorist IS group in the Ain el-Hilweh (Palestinian refugee) camp” in southern Lebanon, the security agency said in a statement.

He also confessed to forming an IS cell along with his brother and another Palestinian refugee. The two accomplices were arrested in the same operation, according to the General Security statement.

The IS official's brother meanwhile confessed that he had visited the Syrian city of Raqa -- the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State group -- with the aim of “coordinating security operations inside Lebanon.”

“He met with senior leaders of the IS group and they set up a central operations room in the Ain el-Hilweh camp and intended to link it to all IS terrorist cells operating in Lebanon's Palestinian camps,” the statement said.

“They plotted to target Lebanese army posts and checkpoints with suicide bombers, to assassinate Lebanese and Palestinian political figures, and to booby-trap cars to blow them up in Dahieh's neighborhoods, especially during occasions and ceremonies, including the Ashura commemorations,” the General Security added.

The botched scheme had been intended at “stirring sectarian sedition and undermining coexistence.”

“Following interrogation, they were referred to the relevant judicial authorities and efforts are still underway to monitor and pursue the rest of the group's members as well as the instigators and collaborators,” the agency said.

Y.R.