General Prosecutor Orders Arrest of 7 Suspects in Assault on 4 Clerics

General Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi ordered on Tuesday the arrest of seven people suspected of involvement in attacks on four Sunni sheikhs in two areas of Beirut.

Four of them are suspected of involvement in the assault on Dar al-Fatwa clerics Sheikh Mazen Hariri and Sheikh Ahmed Fakhran on Sunday in the Shiite area of Khandaq al-Ghamiq in Beirut, said the state-run National News Agency.

The remaining three are suspected of attacking two other sheikhs, one of them identified as Omar al-Imami, in the Beirut suburb of Shiyyah.

In remarks to As Safir and al-Joumhouria newspapers published Tuesday, Madi promised to punish the perpetrators of the attacks.

“We are looking closely at the case from its beginning till its end and scrutinizing the identity of the attackers and their motives,” he said.

The investigators are also probing their possible link to any local party, he added.

“The number of suspects that are being questioned could rise or decline depending on the results of the investigations,” Madi told the dailies.

“But the perpetrators will get the punishment that they deserve,” he said.

Army intelligence sources told As Safir that the two incidents in Khandaq al-Ghamiq and Shiyyah were not linked.

The perpetrators of the Khandaq al-Ghamiq assault are part of a “bigger network linked to other operations aimed at creating instability,” the sources said, without giving further details.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told the newspaper that “it's not enough to arrest suspects. We should know who is using these people for such a dangerous” mission.

Amal and Hizbullah are calling for the maximum punishment against them, Charbel added in an attempt to contain the fallout.

The assault on the Sheikhs led to road closures in Beirut and other cities for the second day Monday.

Protesters blocked the roads with garbage bins and burning tires, inflaming old tensions already boiling over the conflict in Syria.