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Lebanese Authorities Hunting down would-be Bomber Accomplices

Lebanese Authorities Hunting down would-be Bomber Accomplices
folder_openLebanon access_time7 years ago
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Local Editor

Lebanese security forces are searching for two suspected suicide bombers thought to be members of the extremist cell behind an attempted attack in Beirut over the weekend, a local newspaper reported Monday.

Lebanese Authorities Hunting down would-be Bomber Accomplices

The two suspected militants, along with 25-year-old Lebanese national Omar Hasan Assi, are allegedly members of a three-person extremist cell.

Assi was arrested over the weekend after he attempted to detonate an explosives belt at a cafe in Beirut's bustling Hamra neighborhood.

Al-Joumhouria newspaper reported that the "terror cell" had planned to carry out several synchronized suicide attacks in Beirut.

"[The] attempted attacks could only be smoke bombs to distract attention from other sensitive areas where the terrorists might seek to conduct more dangerous and bloody operations," a source warned in remarks published by the daily.

On Saturday night, Assi entered a branch of Costa Coffee on Beirut's busy Hamra Street with the intent of carrying out a deadly attack. He was stopped by a joint force from the Internal Security Forces Information Branch and Army Intelligence.

Assi is reportedly a supporter of the radical Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir.

Assir loyalists clashed with the army in 2013 in the south Lebanon town of Abra, near Sidon.

Assi is said to have previously been a designated nurse for the Bilal bin-Rabah Mosque where Assir was a sheikh. Following the Abra clashes, Assi worked at a local grocery store selling juice before getting a job as a nurse at the Hammoud Hospital, one of the largest medical centers in the area.

Assi had been wearing an 8-kilogram shrapnel-laden explosives belt intended to cause the largest possible number of casualties, according to an army statement.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

 

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