Arsal Militant Involved in Bombings Sentenced to Life with Hard Labor

The Military Court on Saturday sentenced jihadist militant Ahmed Ammoun to life in prison with hard labor, the National News Agency said.

Ammoun, who goes by the nom de guerre Al-Sheikh and hails from the eastern border town of Arsal, was also stripped of his civil rights.

The militant was convicted of a host of charges including “rigging cars with explosives and blowing them up in several Lebanese areas among them Beirut’s southern suburbs; participating in attacks on army posts in Arsal in 2014; killing citizens and army and Internal Security Forces personnel; and plotting to send bomb-laden cars into Lebanon.”

In the wake of the Syrian uprising, the mountainous outskirts of Arsal had served as a safe haven for Syrian rebels and jihadists from the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups.

The militants were ousted from the area in separate offensives carried out by Hizbullah and the Lebanese and Syrian armies in 2017.