E-Paper
Al-Qaeda establishing base in Lebanon
Al-Qaeda has been seeking for several months to "establish itself" in Lebanon, the country's new interior minister said.
Al-Qaeda has been seeking for several months to "establish itself" in Lebanon, the country's new interior minister said in an interview with a French newspaper published on Saturday.
"We know that for four or five months Al-Qaeda has been trying to establish a presence in Lebanon," Ahmad Fatfat said.
Fatfat replaced Hassan Sabeh who resigned after violent anti-Danish protests in Beirut prompted by publication of 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.
"The organisation is infiltrating its fighters and recruiting locally. The soil is fertile," he said.
"We recently dismantled two groups suspected of belonging to this network."
He said that "13 individuals from different Middle East countries" were arrested "a month ago" and were "preparing attacks" in Lebanon.
Last month a legal source said that seven Syrians, three Lebanese, a Jordanian, a Palestinian and a Saudi were facing prosecution in a military court.
"We have also detained five people involved in attacks on military positions," Fatfat said without giving further details.
Asked about rocket attacks on Israel last December for which Al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility Fatfat said that the information available to him led him to believe that Al-Qaeda was responsible.
