Moroccan Security Forces Arrest Lebanese Affiliated With Hezbollah

Foreign currency and different driving licenses were discovered at the home of the Lebanese suspect in Casablanca Wednesday [GettyImages]
Foreign currency and different driving licenses were discovered at the home of the Lebanese suspect in Casablanca Wednesday [GettyImages]
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Moroccan Security Forces Arrest Lebanese Affiliated With Hezbollah

Foreign currency and different driving licenses were discovered at the home of the Lebanese suspect in Casablanca Wednesday [GettyImages]
Foreign currency and different driving licenses were discovered at the home of the Lebanese suspect in Casablanca Wednesday [GettyImages]

Moroccan authorities said late Thursday they arrested a Lebanese national affiliated with the Hezbollah party over charges of committing fraud and identity theft.

They said the 57-year-old man features on the Interpol list of wanted criminals.

The National Brigade of the Judicial Police (BNPJ), upon intelligence provided by the National Security Directorate, (DGST), arrested the Hezbollah member last Wednesday in Casablanca over charges of fraud, identity theft, and possession of identity documents and passports reported stolen.

The suspect is accused of defrauding money from several victims in Morocco. He also used stolen French and Portuguese passports, fooled his victims claiming he is a manager of foreign companies.

At his residence, the security forces found two stolen French and Portuguese passports, registered as stolen in the database of Interpol, several identity documents, French driving licenses with Portuguese, French, and Italian names as well as an unspecified amount of money in foreign currency and local Dirham.

The investigations are conducted in coordinating with Interpol as well as with the countries concerned to determine the circumstances of the declaration of the theft of the seized passports.

Morocco accuses Iran and its Lebanese Shiite ally, Hezbollah, of training and arming fighters of the Polisario Front, a Western Sahara independence movement.

US officials have long been concerned that central and west African countries could become safe havens for financiers of Hezbollah looking to take advantage of weak financial regulation.



Toll in Syria Opposition-army Fighting Rises to 242

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
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Toll in Syria Opposition-army Fighting Rises to 242

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)

More than 240 people, mostly combatants, were killed as intense fighting approached Syria's northern Aleppo city after the opposition launched a major offensive on government-held areas this week, a monitor said Friday.
On Wednesday, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied Turkish-backed factions launched an attack on government-held areas in the northwest, triggering the fiercest fighting since 2020, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said fighting reached two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the main northern city of Aleppo, where the group’s artillery shelling on student housing killed four civilians, according to state media.
"The combatants' death toll in the ongoing... operation in the Idlib and Aleppo countrysides has risen to 218," since Wednesday, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
In addition to the fighters, it said 24 civilians were killed.
Syrian ally Russia launched air strikes that killed 19 civilians on Thursday, while another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier, said the Observatory which on Thursday had reported an overall toll of about 200 dead, including the civilians.