Lebanon announced on Friday that it had thwarted an ISIS terrorist plot, through a detained member of the terrorist group, Abou Jaafar al-Iraqi, who was used as an informant.
Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said during a press conference that the high-level operation was the product of months of efforts carried out not only by Lebanese intelligence, but also agencies in the Arab world.
The Iraqi man was sent by ISIS to Lebanon to form a new cell to carry out attacks, he added.
The intelligence bureau of Lebanon’s Internal Security Force said in a statement at the news conference that security services had tracked Iraqi’s activities in Iraq and after he arrived in Lebanon in June.
When it became clear he was planning to return to Iraq, he was arrested and turned into an informant.
For five months he carried on communicating with ISIS abroad and working on the cell - all the while feeding information back to Lebanese security forces.
ISIS asked him “to exert maximum effort to carry out terror attacks in Lebanon especially during the holiday season and end of year celebrations”, the information division said.
The operation was ended after intelligence showed ISIS command abroad had become suspicious of Iraqi and the lack of attacks, it said.
A number of arrests were made as a result of the operation, Mashnouq said.
