Security agencies succeeded in the past few days in uncovering a
terrorist network with local, Arab, and European links, reported al-Joumhouria
newspaper on Tuesday.
It said that the confessions of one of the detainees led to the
arrest of Sunni Islamist Shadi al-Mawlawi, a development which sparked armed
clashes in the northern city of Tripoli over the weekend.
The General Security detained in Tripoli last week Hamza Mahmoud
Tarbey whose confessions led to al-Mawlawi’s arrest.
The six-member network includes three Lebanese individuals and a
national from each of Qatar, Palestine, and Jordan.
They have each been arrested at various times in the past in Lebanon,
added al-Joumhouria.
Sources told the newspaper that this was the first time in Lebanon
that an entire network is arrested.
Military Tribunal Judge Saqr Saqr had charged on Monday al-Mawlawi
and the five other network members with forming an armed terrorist group and
undermining the authority of the state, as well as having links to the
al-Qaida.
He later issued an arrest warrant against al-Mawlawi.
Prominent security sources told As Safir newspaper on Tuesday that
the General Security Department took the initiative to arrest al-Mawlawi given
the evidence against him.
Investigations with him soon proved the department right as he
confessed to the charges against him, added the sources.
They revealed that a European power contributed information on al-Mawlawi’s
terrorist activity outside of Lebanon.
Al-Mawlawi was arrested on Saturday after the General Security
Department lured him to an office at Finance Minister Mohammed al-Safadi’s
welfare association in Tripoli.
His arrest sparked clashes between the rival Tripoli neighborhoods
of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.
Some opposition officials have accused the General Security of
acting on foreign orders, while Interior Minister Marwan Charbel has summoned
the officer who lured al-Mawlawi to the office for questioning over the manner
in which the arrest was made.
Al-Mawlawi's supporters say he was targeted because of his help
for Syrian refugees fleeing to Lebanon.
The General Security Department detained a Jordanian called
Abdulmalek Mohammed Youssef Othman Abdulsalam, who is linked to al-Qaida, the
pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Monday.
Abdulsalam was extradited by the Iranian authorities to Syria in
the past few months, and then he entered Lebanon and was arrested when he was
on his way to the Rafik Hariri International Airport.
Investigations revealed that Abdulsalam had continuous contacts
with al-Qaida-linked figures in Afghanistan.
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http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/40242
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