The terrorist organization ISIS (Daesh) was recently planning suicide attacks in Lebanon, a high-ranking security source told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday.
The Lebanese Army‘s Directorate of Intelligence recently arrested several members of the organization who admitted to having been in the midst of a preparation and planning stage to target sites belonging to the Army and to security forces.
The detainees, identified as 12 Syrians and 6 Lebanese, included a Lebanese national considered the mastermind leading the captured group.
This group, the security source noted, is similar to the one that was responsible for the Kaftoun massacre. The operation that led to their arrest was the outcome of intensive surveillance by the Intelligence Directorate.
The Directorate had tightened its security perimeter around the group following the awakening of ISIS cells that recently carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria, the security source added.
The source noted that the Intelligence Directorate had reached a firm conviction that ISIS had been planning to revert to carrying out terrorist attacks in Lebanon targeting military outposts and bases.
It also revealed that the aforementioned detainees had been securing money through illegal means for the equipment they needed to prepare explosives.