The arrested terrorist Naeem Abbas, planner of suicide attacks in Lebanon, has confessed during investigation with the Lebanese army intelligence directorate to his involvement in training and arming Takfiri youth.
The arrested terrorist Naeem Abbas, planner of suicide attacks in Lebanon, has confessed during investigation with the Lebanese army intelligence directorate to his involvement in training and arming Takfiri youth and planning for their suicide attacks, local daily Al-Akhbar reported Wednesday.
It is worth noting that two other arrested terrorists have said during interrogations that some clerics are recruiting suicide bombers, and others are assisting the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in carrying out terrorist attacks in Lebanon, including Sheikh Houssam Sabbagh of Tripoli.
In his statement before army intelligence investigators, a lot of what Abbas, a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon, revealed can be classified as «very important». The man is the «authorized agent» for Al-Nusra Front and ISIL in Beirut. He is responsible in full or in part for most of the terrorist attacks that targeted the southern suburb of Beirut, starting from launching rockets at the Shiah neighborhood mid-2013 until his arrest.
Remarkably, Abbas confessed to his contact with «Abu Khaled Al-Souri», companion of Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, and the deputy of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Syria who put him in charge of the arbitration between the Front and ISIL. «Abu Khaled» is also one of the «Islamic Ahrar al-Sham Movement» (free people of Levant Islamic movement) founders and was assassinated in Aleppo three days ago.
All of Abbas statement is serious: the operations he carried out, his operations that didn't manage to succeed, Sheikh Omar Jouanieh, a cleric who used to deliver ISIL funds to him (he handed him a $ 20 thousand dollars). Abbas said that Jouanieh is a member of Taqwa Association (an organization of religious nature) in Beirut.
On the confessions sidelines, other information was not less important. Those are reported by the two suicide bombers arrested by the army after arresting Abbas: Mohammad Bakr al-Mahmoud (born in 1996 in Wadi Khaled ) and Omar Momtaz Khodor ( born in 1991 in Berkayel).
Mahmoud was arrested in the Bekaa, and admitted that he agreed to carry out a suicide attack planned by Naeem Abbas in favor of ISIL against Shiites (according to his statement), and named Sheikh Imad Al-Maliss who recruited him to fight in Syria and to carry out a suicide operation against «the Refuseniks», referring to Shiites.
While Khodor who was detained on his way from Syria, endorsed that he was to interview Sheikh Houssam al-Sabbagh in north Lebanon to hand over money to be used in preparing car bombs.
Khodor also approved that he took part in launching rockets at Hermel town of Lebanon north with al-Nusra Front. Sabbag is one of the most prominent clerics in Tripoli and has a say over almost most of the gunmen, and has strong links with armed groups leaders in the north and in Syria, and has a close relationship with former chief of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Sheikh Salem Al-Rafii.
Lebanese security information indicated that Sabbagh is one of al-Qaeda representatives in Lebanon , and one of its «Shura Council» members, which was commissioned in 2006 to prepare the ground work of the organization in Lebanon and to recruit fighters to fight in Iraq.
Sabbagh is still at large. From time to time he participates in meetings with security chiefs and public officials in Tripoli. In short, he is one of the «red lines» that the state does not dare to touch them, despite being named in the suicide bomber's testimony as one of the participants in preparation for blast operations in Lebanon.
The following are most prominent highlights of Naeem Abbas statement:
Naeem Abbas Mahmoud, nicknamed «Naeem Abbas» or «Abu Suleiman», born in 1970 in Ein al-Helwe Palestinian refugee camp. He joined the Fatah movement in 1986 before moving in 1993 to the Islamic Jihad movement, which he left in 2002 following a rocket attack he carried out against occupied Palestine without the knowledge of the movement's leadership.
In 2005, he went to Iraq and met Saleh al-Qeblawi. He worked in training division of Al-Qaeda and swore allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Qeblawi is Abu Jaafar al-Maqdisi, a Palestinian form Ein al-Helwe refugee camp in Lebanon who was responsible for the security of Zarqawi and was killed with him in Iraq in 2006.
He returned to Lebanon after two months with Zarqawi's deputy, and formed an al-Qaeda-affiliated group with Tawfiq Taha, a leader of the so-called «Abdullah Azzam Brigades», and recruited each of Marwan H., Bashir B., Motlaq J., Ramez K. and Abdul Rahman N. to store rockets in Yarin and launch them (at occupied Palestine).
In 2008, he fled to Syria using a forged identity card by the name of Saeed Mahmoud, and returned to Lebanon after seven months.
Abbas met then with Majed Al-Majed - the Emir of Abdullah Azzam Brigades, Jamal Daftardar - chief of religious affairs, Tawfiq Taha - the security chief, and Bilal Kayed, a leading figure in the Brigades, and was assigned operational work (inside Ein al-Helwe).
In 2012, Majed sent Abbas to Syria to create cells of the Brigades with Daftardar and Mohammad Jomaa, in coordination with Khaled Hmayyed (who was killed during an army raid to arrest him in Arsal in February 2013).
Abbas returned to Lebanon with Jomaa and met Sirajuddin Zureiqat (a leader of «Abdullah Azzam Brigades») who sent him to Majed in Barada valley in Syria to recruit people. Abbas followed him with Akram Yassin (arrested) and Salim Abu Ghosh (arrested).
In Syria, Abbas met with Ahmad Mahmoud Taha (nicknamed "Abu al-Walid" who belongs to Ahrar al-Sham Brigade). He underwent training on the firing rockets. Taha and Abbas returned to Lebanon and agreed to bomb Dahiyeh in the southern suburb of the capital Beirut. Indeed, Abbas, Taha and Jomaa launched in May 2013 three rockets that landed in the Shiah-Mar Mikhael area, hitting a residential building and a cars gallery.
In 2013, Abbas equipped a car bomb (stolen from Khaldah region in south Beirut) in coordination with Omar S. (nicknamed Abu Farouq), Hussein Z., Ahmad Taha, Mohammad Jomaa and Amin Osman. It was the first booby-trapped car that exploded in Bir al-Abed of Dahiyeh in July 9, 2013 that was parked by Hussein Z . And Saeed H.
According to Abbas' confessions, al-Naameh group (that includes Hussein Z., Mohammad A., Saeed B. Syria and a Syrian young man called Abu Adam) carried out the car bombing in Ruwais of Dahiyeh in August 15, 2013. The same group has collaborated with Abbas in Bir al-Abed bombing, and was chased by the Internal Security and Public Security.
A car containing large quantity of explosives and projectiles was seized with a number of the group members.
In 2013, Abbas spent 18 days in Syria, during which he launched rockets -with Ahmed Taha - at the People's Palace, commissioned by Abu Khaled al-Souri. Abbas acknowledged that they had struck a center for special forces near the Syrian Parliament.
In December 2013, commissioned by ISIL emir in Yabroud, Taha moved a Grand Cherokee car bomb to Beirut to carry out a suicide operation, and parked it Sabra neighborhood, but the operation doomed to failure after four people killed, one in Ouwali and three in Majdalyoun areas, south of Lebanon.
On December 20, 2013, Abbas went to Yabroud where he met Al-Nusra Front emir, Abu Malek, who asked him to work with the front for bombing cars in Dahiyeh, to receive suicide bombers in his apartment, and to work on targeting Hezbollah headquarters and Al-Manar television building, in addition to civic institutions have been identified in the meeting.
For his part, Taha met Abu Abdullah Iraqi (from ISIL) in Yabrood and agreed to work with him in preparing for car bomb attacks in Dahiyeh. Iraqi told Taha that he would send the car bombs and would hand over to him the funds he demands.
Based on the Yabroud agreement, Abbas received the suicide bomber Qoutaiba Al-Satem (of Lebanese nationality) in his apartment in the Cornish al-Mazraah before taking him on a tour to Dahiyeh, and specifically to the street where Satem carried out the suicide bombing in January 2014.
Abbas also acknowledged receiving a Kia Sportage-typre car from Omar S. (Abu Farouq), and handed it over to another suicide bomber near Khashqji mosque in Beirut, named Mohammad Hussein Abdullah (of Syrian nationality), who also blew himself up in the Arid Street in Haret Hreik neighborhood.
Abbas also admitted that he equipped the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Choueifat on February 3, 2014, and that he rented a warehouse in Saadiyat, in which he stored the projectiles and explosives.
Translated by E. al-Rihani
