Lebanon Detains ISIS Suspect Planning to Poison Troops

Lebanese security agents have detained a Palestinian refugee suspected of being a member of the ISIS terrorist group who had allegedly planned attacks in Lebanon and abroad.

The General Security Directorate said in a statement on Thursday that the 27-year-old had confessed to being in contact with ISIS operatives in Syria who had instructed him to make bombs and prepare poison.

The statement says the man had readied the unspecified poison, aided by an unnamed person residing abroad but who had visited Lebanon seeking to carry out two operations.

The first operation involved poisoning water supplied to the Lebanese military in tanker trucks; the second involved poisoning food delivered to parties attended by Lebanese living abroad.

The agency says the suspect was caught before he could carry out the plots.

The Palestinian has been referred to the relevant judicial authority, the security forces said, and the authorities are looking for other people involved.

Lebanon has been heavily impacted by the civil war in neighboring Syria since it erupted in March 2011.

Security forces have on several occasions arrested suspected ISIS members.

They are usually tried by military courts, but their trials have dragged on due to the number of cases.

Lebanon has been rocked by several suicide bombings since 2013, some of them claimed by ISIS.

The extremist group in August last year evacuated a Lebanese-Syrian border region under an unprecedented deal to end three years of radicalist presence there.

Source: aawsat