Report: Lebanon nabs 11 Al-Qaida militants planning attacks (Hariri link?)

[allemand]

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent

A Lebanese newspaper reported Friday that Lebanese authorities arrested 11 Al-Qaida militants suspected of intentions to carry out terror attacks.

The Al-Safir newspaper reported that the militants were of Saudi, Jordanian, Lebanese and Palestinian origin.

According to the report, the militants were arrested about one week ago after being monitored by Lebanese security forces for some time. During this time, suspicions developed regarding what the security forces termed "intentions to carry out security activities from Lebanese land." (...)

According to the reports, the continuing investigation will look into a possible connection between the suspects and a man named Khaled Tahak, whose name has been dropped in the ongoing probe into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Tahak is also suspected of enlisting Lebanese residents into Iraq-based terror organizations.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/670167.html

Khaled Taha was a friend of Abu Adass, the suicide bomber who killed Hariri (at least he appeared in a video on al-Jazerra claiming responsibility for the killing).

Mehlis report:
174. (...) Mr. Taha met Mr. Abu Adass when they were students at the Arab University where they used to meet in the University’s mosque. (...) Moreover, the date of his final departure for Syria from Lebanon --- 16 January 2005 --- is the same as the date of Mr. Abu Adass’s disappearance, suggesting a possible link between Mr. Taha’s trip to Lebanon and Mr. Abu Adass’s disappearance.
(PDF) http://www.un.org/news/dh/docs/mehlisreport/pdf/mehlisreport.pdf

[blm]

1. But BushInc has been saying it was Syrians who assassinated Hariri.

.

[ECH1969]

2. The man who assissinated Hariri

was a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq and was told that he was going to be killing Allawi who was visiting Lebanon.

[allemand]

3. You may have missed some important developments:

According to the first Mehlis report, Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik was the source for the Allawi story:

108. Mr. Saddik also gave information about the Mitsubishi itself and that the driver
eventually assigned had been an Iraqi individual who had been led to believe that the
target was Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi (who happened to be in Beirut prior to the
assassination).
http://www.un.org/news/dh/docs/mehlisreport/pdf/mehlisreport.pdf

Saddik now sits in a French prison. In a letter to the Syrian embassy in Paris he recanted his testimony, claiming that he "had been kidnapped";

The statement said Syria received a letter from another Syrian witness who has been identified by the report -- Mohammad Zuhair al-Siddiq -- stating that "he had been kidnapped and forced to make his previous testimony" to implicate Syria.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/12/13/syria_denies_charge_of_slow_cooperation/

[pinerow]

4. It's a shame we have to be so cynical...

when one has been lied to so many times...:shrug: