Judge Indicts Two Syrian Officers over Tripoli Mosques Blasts
Lebanon on Friday indicted two Syrian intelligence officers it accused of involvement in a deadly 2013 double bomb blast in the northern city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Judge Alaa al-Khatib, the judicial investigator into the 2013 bombings of al-Salam and al-Taqwa mosques in Tripoli, issued the indictment.
The indictment names Captain Mohamed Ali Ali, an official in the Palestine branch of Syria's intelligence services, and Nasser Jouban, an official in Syria's political security branch.
The two men, neither of whom is in custody, are accused of helping to prepare the attack, placing explosives in cars and assigning a Lebanese cell to carry out the bombing, which also wounded hundreds.
The indictment issued arrest warrants against the suspects and a permanent investigation to uncover the identities of involved high-ranking Syrian officials who gave orders and directed Ali and Jouban to organize them.
The double bombing killed 45 people, and a series of indictments have already been handed down against Lebanese and Syrians accused of involvement.
The attacks targeted two Sunni mosques in Tripoli, which has frequently experienced tensions between Sunnis and Alawites who belong to the same religious minority as Syrian President Bashar Assad and tend to support his government.
The blasts in the northern city were the deadliest attack in Lebanon since the country's 1975-1990 civil war and raised fears that the conflict in neighboring Syria could be inexorably seeping across the border.
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse
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