Analysts say authorities must keep up pressure on Islamist groups
Lebanese security forces must keep up pressure on militant Islamists after the capture of members of an extremist "cell" suspected of conducting a series of recent bomb attacks in Tripoli, analysts said Monday. On Sunday authorities swooped down on the group, accusing it of having been behind three bomb blasts that left more than 20 people dead. Of the six men rounded up, three have since been released and are protesting their innocence. Another man, believed to be the cell”s leader, is on the run.
Security officials have said the group wanted revenge for the battle between the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Fatah al-Islam, a militant group based in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, in the summer of 2007. The fighting left more than 400 people dead and destroyed the camp.
Professor Elias Hanna, a retired LAF general now teaching at Notre Dame University said: "If you go back to Nahr al-Bared, at that time the army achieved a great deal. They completely destroyed the terrorist”s safe haven."
But crucial follow-up work wasn”t done, he added, leaving the militants time to regroup and plan further attacks. "The army should have followed up the operation, but for whatever reason this didn”t happen to the extent it should have," Hanna said.
Despite this, he said important lessons were learned from engaging Fatah al-Islam. "Terrorism of this type used to be a mystery to Lebanon," he said. "It was new and unpredictable. Now it”s not a mystery, it is a puzzle – there is a solution to it."
When they were arrested, members of the cell apparently had in their possession equipment for further attacks, including an explosive belt. Security sources said the potential targets could have been the Internal Security Forces headquarters in Beirut and another military bus. Hanna says the level of sophistication of the group had not been seen in Lebanon until the Nahr al-Bared fighting.
"We have never seen such types of terrorists, so we have to study their techniques to prevent their attacks," he said. He emphasized that human intelligence – information gathered by infiltration – was the key to solving the "puzzle" of Islamic militancy in time to prevent attacks.
"It”s very important to have broken this cell – it will send others underground and disrupt their activities," he said. "You could have a lot of cells [that] can operate independently, like a lone wolf. So there needs to be a process of prevention, a proactive approach that does not give them time to launch an attack."
The Tripoli bombings had sparked fears that northern Lebanon was becoming a haven for Sunni extremists. Syria publicly called for the security situation in Lebanon to be improved, and massed thousands of troops on the border between the two countries.
Professor Fadia Kiwan, head of political science at Universite Saint Joseph, said the capture of the cell was the result of a new commitment by the government to tackle extremist groups in North Lebanon. "This event shows that there is a real political will. We didn”t change our army and security forces. The only conclusion I can draw is that in the past they were lacking instructions [from politicians]."
She said the election of a new president with a military background and Syria”s troop build-up had galvanized support among Lebanese politicians for eradicating militant groups.