Report: Lebanon nabs top militant over rocket attack against Israel

Last update - 11:01 31/10/2009       
Report: Lebanon nabs top militant over rocket attack against Israel
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service

 

Lebanon arrested a man suspected of orchestrating a recent rocket launch toward northern Israel, the Lebanese daily As-Safir reported on Saturday.

 

On Wednesday, Lebanese troops found and dismantled four rockets ready for launching near the border with Israel last Wednesday, a day after the Katyusha was launched from the southern village.

 

The Katyusha fire was the first such incident since last month, and the ninth since the Second Lebanon War.
 
The attack drew a rapid response from Israeli artillery in a brief flare-up across the border. Neither the rocket nor the artillery caused casualties.

 

The man, Fadi Ibrahim, also known as "Sikamo," is allegedly a member of the radical Sunni Muslim militant group Fatah al Islam, an organization with known ideological ties to al-Qaida.

 

The As-Safir report said Ibrahim is considered an aide to the group's leader, and that he the head of the group's bomb-planting and rocket-launching operations in Southern Lebanon, directed also at UNIFIL forces stationed in that area.

 

Lebanese intelligence, according to the report, apprehended Ibrahim after drawing him out of the Ein el Hilweh refugee camp, near the costal city of Sidon.

 

Also on Saturday, Lebanon's Foreign Minister, Fawzi Salloukh, told pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that Israel had overreacted to the launches and that it wasn't waiting until a joint investigation of the incident by UNIFL and the Lebanese army could be concluded.

 

Salloukh added that the Israeli reaction comes even after Lebanon severely condemned the attacks and as both its and UNIFIL forces are working to maintain regional stability and implement UN resolution 1701, which saw a truce between Israel and Lebanon following the 2006 war.

 

Salloukh confirmed that he had indeed instructed the country's envoy to the UN to send a message to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon protesting Israel's bombardment of the southern Lebanese village of Houla, the site from which a the Katyusha rocket was fired at the Upper Galilee last week, saying it was a blatant violation of resolution 1701.

 

The Lebanese foreign minister added that there were no clear signs that Israel was about to attack it's neighbor to the north, since Lebanon was working to implement resolution 1701.

 

However, Salloukh did say that Israel's persistent violations of the UN resolution, in the land, the sea, and the air, which include orchestrating an alleged espionage network, lead him to the conclusion that Israel is laying the groundwork to justify a future strike against Lebanon.

 

On Friday, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Hayyat reported that Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations has warned that Israel is exhibiting signs of an imminent attack on his country,

 

Ambassador Noaf Salaam sent missives to the United Nations secretary general and to the Security Council condemning Israel's recent artillery fire on the village of Houla. the Salaam called the artillery fire a clear violation of Lebanon's sovereignty as well as of UN Resolution 1701.

 

According to Al-Hayyat, Salaam described in his missive repeated Israeli threats against the Lebanese government and citizens, an expression he believes signals Israeli plans for to attack.

 

Salaam also said that the Israeli decision to bomb Lebanese territory following every Katyusha attack delayed and prevented Lebanese forces from investigating the rocket attacks.