BEIRUT, 16 May 2003 — Lebanon has arrested nine people plotting an attack on the US Embassy and kidnappings to try to force the release of militant prisoners, military intelligence officials said yesterday. News of the arrests came three days after suicide bombings on foreigners’ housing compounds in Saudi Arabia killed at least 34 people, including seven Americans, the first major attack on US targets since the war in Iraq.
“Lebanese intelligence services and those of the Syrian Army present in Lebanon have arrested the members of a network which was plotting attacks on the embassy of a major Western power and bases of the Lebanese Army and police,” an official statement sent to Western news agencies said. “The targeted Western Embassy was the US Embassy in Awkar, north of Beirut,” Lebanese Army sources later told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, DPA.
The statement said the terrorists were also plotting to kidnap Lebanese officials to secure the release of their accomplices who were already under arrest. It did not indicate how many people had been arrested or their nationalities. The statement came a week after a Lebanese military court brought charges against two Lebanese nationals accused of planning three unsuccessful attacks against the US ambassador and the US embassy building.
Khaled Mohammed Al-Ali, known as Abu Obeida, and Abdel Ilah Al- Jassem were charged with trying to kill the US Ambassador to Lebanon Vincent Battle during a visit to the northern port city of Tripoli late last year. The plan failed for unknown reasons.
They also planned to attack the US Embassy with rocket-propelled grenades and another plan involved placing explosives in a tunnel and detonating them when the ambassador’s car passed through. Around 30 people were rounded up, among them five Lebanese and two Palestinians. The two defendants and the other members are also being prosecuted for a string of attacks using dynamite against four US fast-food restaurants and a British store over the past few months.
The Lebanese Army said that it and Syrian military intelligence had detained members of a cell planning “sabotage and attacks on various targets, the most important being the embassy of a major Western state, security and military outposts and kidnappings of officials” to bargain for the detainees’ release.
The army statement did not identify the embassy or the people allegedly targeted for abduction, but military intelligence sources said the heavily fortified US embassy compound in Beirut was the target. They said the military targets were Lebanese and Syrian installations in the country, and that the alleged plotters had also planned to kidnap Lebanese officials to free men jailed over an Islamist uprising in northern Lebanon in 2000.
“They had not got as far as picking names, but it seems they were considering a minister,” said one intelligence official, who said the detainees included at least two Palestinians. Officials had initially said the detainees were all Lebanese. A judicial source said some of the detainees, who were arrested over several days beginning last week, had been named previously as members of other terrorist networks in Lebanon.
The US Embassy declined to comment on the arrests. It also declined comment last week when the army said it had arrested suspects in bomb attacks on Western fast-food restaurants and accused them of also planning to kill the US ambassador during a visit to north Lebanon.
