An Islamic State cell in northern Lebanon had plans to assassinate French President Emmanuel Macron in a suicide terrorist attack during Macron's visit to Lebanon in September 2020, the Lebanese news outlet Al-Akhbar, identified with Hezbollah, reported Monday.
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The report claimed that ISIS cells had also planned to kill several high-ranking officials in Lebanon, including former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and former Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.
The Al-Akhbar report was based in part on information obtained from documents from an investigation into a criminal case in the village of Kaftun, north of Beirut. That criminal case led to the disbandment of one of the largest ISIS cells in Lebanon, seven members of whom were sentenced to death. The seven operatives were part of a group of 18 members, who were in turn part of a larger organization of 40 individuals, most of whom met while in prison in Lebanon.
The investigation into the criminal case, in which cell members shot and killed police officers, revealed that some of the suspects were commanders of cells that had sworn allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, who was recently killed by American forces in Syria in February.
Later, the investigation identified a larger group that included Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian operatives. The group itself was part of a larger framework whose members were under the command of the head of ISIS in Idlib, Syria.
The report claimed that the Lebanese judicial system had ignored the information that surfaced in the investigation, namely that the cell had been issued instructions to carry out a suicide bombing that would kill Macron. According to the report, a search of one of the cell leader's computer indicated that he had received a message from his Syria-based handler, and orders that the attack be carried out in a Christian neighborhood of Beirut.
A security official told Al-Akhbar that the security apparatus had intelligence that members of the cell had discussed the possibility that Hariri would be present at the time of the attack against Macron, and the handler responded, "Kill Saad, too!"
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