Police Bust Syria-Based Terrorist Network

Lebanese police have busted a Syria-based terrorist network grouping operatives from three Arab nationalities on charges of carrying out the twin-bus bombings north of Beirut last month and planning further attacks, reliable sources told Naharnet Tuesday.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said six of the eight culprits have been arrested in Beirut and its surroundings, less than a month after carrying out the twin-bus bombings in the mountainous town of Ain Alaq northeast of Beirut, which resulted in killing three people and wounding more than 20.

The other two remain at large and are believed to be hiding at north Lebanon's Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, according to the sources.

The culprits hold Syrian and Saudi identification documents. Two of the held operatives are Palestinian refugees from the camp of Yarmouk near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The bust, according to one source, also included confiscating a "large quantity of explosives" that were hidden in the Beirut apartment of Syrian suspect identified as Mustapha Siyor.

Members of the network, according to the source, infiltrated into Lebanon from Syria last November under the cover of the so-called "Fatah-Islam" group, which was set up by Syrian intelligence with the objective of carrying out terrorist attacks to destabilize Lebanon and block the ratification of the international tribunal which would try suspects in the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes.

Siyor's cell had been operating under cover from an apartment in Beirut's Christian neighborhood of Karm el-Zaytoun, which is part of the capital's Ashrafiyeh district, the source said.

The daily newspaper al-Moustaqbal reported on Nov. 30 that Syrian President Bashar Assad has sent 200 terrorists to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to assassinate 36 Lebanese public figures.

The group, according to the report, operated under the Fatah-Islam name.

The security source said Fatah-Islam is just a "cover" for the terrorist network that operates in Lebanon from bases controlled by the so-called Fatah-Intifada group, a Syrian-controlled faction that broke away from Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah early in 1983 as part of an effort by the late Syrian President Hafez Assad to create a substitute for Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.

Fatah-Intifada, led from Damascus by the so-called Abu Moussa, runs fortified bases in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley established when the area was controlled by Syria's army which ended its deployment in Lebanon in April 2005.  

source: naharnet