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Lebanese army arrests two Syrians linked to terrorist group

Xinhua, April 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Lebanese army arrested on Friday two Syrian nationals in the eastern Bekaa region for belonging to a terrorist group, reported the National News Agency (NNA).

According to the NNA report, an army intelligence unit arrested Mohammed Idris and Abdul Muhaymen al-Abed in the eastern Bekaa town of al-Labweh for being affiliated to the al-Qaida linked al-Nusra Front.

The army has in recent months arrested a number of suspected extremists linked to the Syrian crisis.

The al-Nusra Front has been a rebel standard-bearer since mid-2012 when it became the spearhead of the insurgency against the regime of President Bashar Assad.

The group has been blacklisted in December by the United States as a "terrorist" organization.

The al-Nusra Front remains entrenched on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal on the porous Syrian-Lebanese border and has engaged in five-day clashes with the Lebanese army last August, after it overran with jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) the border town of Arsal.

Before the withdrawal of the jihadists, they abducted at least 35 soldiers and policemen and then al-Nusra executed four soldiers and the IS beheaded another one. Endit