Lebanese military forces have arrested a high-profile member of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group along with 10 other militants during a mop-up operation in the northeastern town of Arsal on the border with conflict-plagued Syria.
Lebanese soldiers mounted an offensive in the Wadi al-Araneb suburbs of the town, located about 124 kilometers northeast of the capital Beirut, on Friday morning, pounding a Daesh position in the area and inflicting heavy losses on the extremists’ ranks.
The Lebanese army later announced in a statement that the soldiers engaged in fierce clashes with the militants as they stormed the latter’s outpost. A senior Daesh commander, identified as Ahmad Youssef Ammoun but better known by the nom de guerre al-Sheikh, was critically wounded during the operation. He was transferred to a nearby hospital aboard a military helicopter.
The statement added that 10 other Takfiri terrorists were also arrested, and a large amount of munitions and several explosive belts were confiscated in the wake of the offensive.
The Lebanese army further noted that Ammoun was wanted for rigging vehicles with explosives, and then detonating the car bombs into several areas across Lebanon, including Beirut’s southern neighborhoods.
Ammoun was also “involved in attacking military posts in August 2014 and killing citizens, soldiers and policemen on charges of communicating with [Lebanese] security forces,” the army statement pointed out.
President Michel Aoun later praised the military operation, stressing that such offensives “ensure stability and ward off terror plots.”
On October 9, Lebanese security forces discovered the body of a high-ranking Daesh commander, identified as Abu Bakr al-Raqqawi, in Wadi Aata district of Arsal.
Raqqawi was purportedly behind the killing of a police officer, identified as First Sergeant Major Zaher Ezzedine, in the area last January.
The Lebanese army detained Daesh militant commander Imad Yassine in Taware neighborhood of the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, located near the southwestern port city of Sidon, on September 22, following fierce overnight clashes between Takfiri terrorists and members of the Palestinian Fatah movement there.
