Lebanon Arrests 11 over Terrorist Bombings
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Lebanese security forces arrested 11 people, mostly Syrians, over last week's Beirut terrorist bombings that killed 44 people, an attack whose original target was a hospital.
"The detained include seven Syrians and two Lebanese, one of them a (would-be) suicide bomber and the other a trafficker who smuggled them across the border from Syria," Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq said in a televised press conference on Sunday, Reuters reported.
The internal security services later announced the arrest of two other Syrian and Lebanese suspects.
The bombings were claimed by the ISIL terrorist group, which has also claimed the coordinated Paris attacks.
"The whole suicide bombing network and its supporters were arrested in the 48 hours following the explosion," Mashnuq said.
Mashnuq said the Syrians were detained in a Palestinian refugee camp located in Burj al-Barajneh and a flat in the capital's eastern district of Ashrafieh had been used to prepare the explosive belts.
The initial plan was apparently to send five suicide bombers to a hospital in the neighborhood, he said, but heavy security forced them to change the target to a densely populated area.
