BEIRUT: Lebanese troops detained 50 people in raids on towns and Syrian refugee camps in the north of the country, the army said yesterday, part of a security crackdown after battles with Islamist gunmen over the weekend.
The army has mounted several raids since Islamist militants clashed with soldiers in and around the northern city of Tripoli from Friday to Sunday, some of the worst fighting to spill over to Lebanon from the Syrian civil war.
Soldiers moved on the towns of Al Minya, Mashta Hassan, Mashta Hammoud and refugee camps in the town of Behneen on Wednesday. The 50 detainees were mainly Syrian but included nine Lebanese and one Palestinian, an army statement said.
In one of the raids, soldiers seized a number of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers as well as communications equipment, the statement said.
Soldiers also stopped and arrested a man at a checkpoint near the northern Lebanese border town of Arsal who confessed to being a weapons smuggler for militants in the area.
Lebanese officials fear Islamist insurgents from the Syrian war are trying to expand their influence into Sunni Muslim areas of northern Lebanon. They see a rising threat from groups such as Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the ultra hardline Islamic State, who may try to open up new supply routes between Syria and Lebanon as winter unfolds.
Yesterday, a military court charged a man it said was an important member of Islamic State, a judicial source said, adding that 17 others were also charged in absentia.
The man, Ahmed Salim Mikati, was arrested by the army in a raid in northern Lebanon last week and was described by the military forces as one of the group’s most important operatives in the region.
Syria’s war has sparked gun battles, bombings and kidnappings in Lebanon and forced more than 1 million Syrian refugees into the small Mediterranean country, putting a strain on its shaky infrastructure.
REUTERS
