An "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) plot to blow up a Lebanese army bus has been thwarted, Lebanon's Naharnet reported on Wednesday (February 21st).
"The General Directorate of General Security has arrested Syrian national A.F.H., 24, for belonging to a terrorist group and communicating with terrorists," the directorate said in a statement.
"During interrogation, he said he had met a foreign woman and they started exchanging [internet] channels belonging to the terrorist ISIS group," it said.
The woman then managed to recruit him for the group and to convince him of its ideology, it added.
"She started urging him to wage jihad through carrying out a security operation in Lebanon before eventually managing to convince him and to link him to a security official from the terrorist ISIS group," the statement said.
The detainee "suggested targeting Lebanese soldiers during his conversations with the aforementioned ISIS security official, telling him that he was seeing a Lebanese army military bus carrying soldiers on daily basis and that he was willing to target it with a suicide operation", it said.
The suspect then sent a picture of the bus to the ISIS official after monitoring its routes and timetable.
"The security official linked him to one of the group's bomb making experts, who communicated with him and provided him with instructions to create a suicide belt," it said.
The bomb making expert was about to provide him with the needed material to create the suicide belt but he was arrested before being able to do so, the statement said.
"Following interrogation, he was referred to the relevant judicial authorities and efforts are underway to arrest the rest of the culprits," it said.
