More Arrests as Army Clampdown on Militants Continues
The army said on Thursday that it has arrested a Lebanese man who admitted to smuggling arms to jihadists taking position on the Lebanese-Syrian border as the military rounded up dozens in its clampdown on militants.
Abdullah Mahmoud al-Hujairi was apprehended in the area of Wadi Hmeid in the northeastern border town of Arsal, said an army communique.
He admitted to smuggling weapons and food to the terrorists on the outskirts of Arsal, it added.
Also Thursday, the state-run National News Agency said the military arrested 13 suspects in the town of al-Dreeb in the northern Akkar district.
NNA said that three of the suspects are Lebanese nationals.
The remaining are Syrians, including the leader of an armed group that engaged in battles in the village of al-Hosn in central Syria.
The army said in its communique that the number of suspects rounded up during raids in northern Lebanon on Wednesday reached 50.
Nine of them are Lebanese, one is Palestinian and the others are Syrians, it added.
The Lebanese army has been carrying out large-scale raids since weekend battles with fighters in Tripoli and the region of Koura in search for suspects. Despite the arrest of scores of militants, several of them have fled.
The battle between the Lebanese army and extremists in northern Lebanon was widely expected after members of the Islamic State group and al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, launched several attacks over the past weeks in areas on the border with Syria.
Army units continued on Thursday clamping down on gunmen involved in the town of Bhannine Akkar as Army chief General Jean Qahwaji inspected military positions in Tripoli and Akkar.
An army reconnaissance drone accompanied the operation.
H.K.
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