A bombing targeted a cafe in a predominantly Alawite neighbourhood in Lebanon’s second city, Jan 10.

BEIRUT — The Lebanese army foiled a series terror plots Thursday, announcing the arrest of a cell planning a number of suicide attacks in the country and dismantling a car packed with explosives in northeastern Lebanon. 

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk warned that terrorism from Syria and Iraq has actually reached Lebanon, while guaranteeing that Lebanese security services were fully capable of thwarting terrorist schemes.

The military said in a statement that it dismantled a Mercedes rigged with 120 kilograms of explosives after an Army Intelligence patrol spotted it in the area of Ain al-Shaab, on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal.

An earlier Army statement announced that the military thwarted a series of suicide attacks which were planned to take place after a twin suicide bombing which hit Tripoli on Saturday, Jan. 10, killing seven  people. 

The Army said it arrested Bassam Houssam al-Naboush, Elie Tony al-Warraq and Mohannad Ali Abdel-Kader, who were plotting a series of terrorist attacks against “army locations and residential areas.”

An army source said that although his name indicated he was a Christian, Elie Tony al-Warraq was actually a Sunni from Tripoli.

The three suspects, who had been using fake Syrian and Palestinian IDs, were linked to Shadi Mawlawi and Osama Mansour, two of the most-wanted Islamist fugitives in Lebanon.

The men had pledged allegiance to “terrorist organizations and participated in the fighting in Syria as well as in attacks on the Army,” the statement said. The source identified the terrorist organizations as the Nusra Front and the “Islamic State”.