ISIS plans to invade Lebanon and declare emirate: Report

Middle East, News February 24, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

The ISIS militants are reportedly preparing for military operations to invade Lebanon and declare an “emirate” there in the near future.

The scheme was revealed by Lebanese security sources cited in a Monday report by the local Daily Star news outlet, which further pointed out that the militants have demanded support from affiliated terrorists in northern Syria to achieve their intrusion objectives.

According to the sources, the ISIS command has also started arrangements to establish “a military organizational committee tasked with running Lebanese affairs” following their presumed invasion of the nation.

However, the security sources noted that the notorious terror group was having difficulties picking a Lebanese commander for their military mission in the country after ruling out the appointment of fugitive preacher Ahmad al-Assir for the post.

Efforts to set up an ISIS command for “the Lebanon emirate” were being carried out “under the supervision of the group commander Khalaf al-Zeyabi Halous, codenamed Abu Musaab Halous,” a native of Syria “who had played a key role” in the ISIS’s capture the country’s northern Raqqa province in 2013, according to the sources.

Halous recently visited the al-Qalamoun region on the Lebanese-Syrian border, where he met with field commanders to discuss setting up security and military formations between Qalamoun and Lebanon.

Since the ISIS’s “adventure” of setting up an emirate in Lebanon “has not received the green light from the powers backing ISIS,” the terrorist group’s attempt to expand into Lebanon “might be doomed to failure”, the report said using an alternative spelling for ISIS.

“An influential party in Lebanon” has received key intelligence indicating that the ISIS is “bent on recruiting more… bombers equipped with explosives belts to target Shia gatherings in Beirut and the southern suburbs as well as French and Western interests.”

According to the report, the development “coincides with official and party security reports that terrorist organizations, at the forefront of which are ISIS and the [al-Qaeda-linked] Nusra Front, are preparing to launch attacks deep into Lebanese territory, not only from the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal, but also from along the eastern frontier.”

MFB/NT/AS