The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar close to Hezbollah reported this morning (Monday) that an ISIS cell in the north of the country planned to assassinate French President Emanuel Macron in a suicide bombing, during his visit to Beirut in September 2020.
The paper claimed that ISIS squads had also planned to eliminate a number of other senior officials in the land of cedars, including former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and former Lebanese Foreign Minister Jabran Basil.
Al-Akhbar was based, among other things, on information that emerged from investigative documents of a criminal case that took place in the village of Kafton, north of Beirut.
Following the same affair, one of ISIS 'largest cells in Lebanon was disbanded: seven members were sentenced to death from a group of 18 activists.
These were part of a wider squad of 40 people, most of whom met during their detention in Rome Prison (Central Prison in Lebanon; SQ).
On the night of August 21, 2020, four gunmen traveling in a Honda - two of them Lebanese and two of them Syrians - opened fire on three policemen in the village of Kafton.
This, after the police monitored the squad's activity since it entered the village.
The indictment dealt with both the crime itself and the identity of the cell and its missions, with the decisions in the case being decided in March and September 2021.
"Kill Sa'ad too!"
Investigations by security forces revealed that some of the suspects in the killing of the policemen were commanders of squads who swore allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashmi al-Qurshi, who was recently assassinated by American forces in Syria.
Later, a larger group was identified that included Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian activists.
The group itself was part of a larger framework of members under the supervision of ISIS leader Idlib.
According to the newspaper, the Lebanese legal system ignored information that emerged from the investigations.
According to the same information, as stated, the ISIS cell received instructions to carry out a suicide attack with the aim of eliminating the French president from Macron.
According to the report, information was found in the computer of one of the senior members of the cell who received a message from his operator in Syria, and it emerged that the attack would take place in one of the Christian neighborhoods in Beirut.
A security source told the newspaper that there was information that members of the cell had discussed with the Syrian operator about the possible presence of Prime Minister Saad Hariri alongside President Makron - and the operator's response was: "Kill Saad too!".
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