SEVEN Australians suspected of involvement with an al-Qaeda-linked terror group have been arrested following raids by the Lebanese army in which 11 people were killed.
Foreign militants were among the dead, including one man who may be Australian. Lebanese authorities were working last night to establish his nationality.
Five of those arrested, among them Sydney accountant Ibrahim Sabouh, were seized during a round-up of foreigners near the northern city of Tripoli last Thursday.
Information believed to have been passed on as a result of that raid led the Lebanese military to an apartment building in the city.
Security sources said that as troops approached on Saturday morning, a militant posing as an ice-cream seller outside the building opened fire with an automatic rifle, sparking a 10-hour siege that ended with six extremists, a soldier, a policeman and three civilians dead. Fourteen people were wounded.
The policeman, his two daughters, aged four and eight, and his father-in-law died after being used as human shields.
Two Australians were captured as they attempted to flee across open fields.
It was reported last night that those arrested were not members of the al-Qaeda-linked terror group Fatah al-Islam, which has been engaged in a brutal insurgency in northern Lebanon for the past month.
But Lebanese authorities confirmed that the seven Australians were being held on suspicion of being members of a terrorist organisation, although no charges had been laid.
The Australian understands that Mr Sabouh, an accountant from Auburn in Sydney's west who migrated to Lebanon with his wife and three children more than a year ago, was arrested during a raid on his Tripoli home.
Sources said the other Australians were arrested in his home.
Mr Sabouh's wife is understood to have contacted relatives in Australia and told them the authorities had not found any weapons or other incriminating material at her home.
Last night, The Australian visited the house in Auburn were Mr Sabouh lived before he left for Lebanon and was told by a man that the family did not wish to comment.
It is believed Mr Sabouh is a follower of the Salafist brand of Islam a hardline interpretation espoused by the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group which has been fighting to overthrow the Lebanese Government. The group claims the Government is un-Islamic and unrepresentative of the people.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday said the reasons for the arrests were still not clear but consular officials from the Australian embassy in Beirut were in contact with the Lebanese security forces and had requested consular access to the arrested men.
Consular officials in Canberra were also assisting the men's families in Australia, a spokesman said.
The arrests follow an announcement last Thursday that the uprising by Fatah al-Islam had been crushed.
Authorities had been battling the insurgency since last month after militants launched attacks on troops on the outskirts of the Nahr al-Barad Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country.
In a statement issued last night, Lebanese authorities said the policeman and his daughters killed on Saturday were visiting the father-in-law, who lived in the building, when the militants stormed their flat and seized them at the start of the clashes. The militants later killed them.
The army said it had found weapons, ammunition and electronic booby-trap equipment in the apartment. Two floors of the five-storey building were blackened and burned in the fighting. Holes from shells, grenades and bullets punctured its facade. A pool of blood lay on the pavement.
Last week's declaration by Lebanese Defence Minister Elias Murr that Fatah al-Islam had been smashed followed a month of heavy fighting in which more than 60 Lebanese soldiers were killed. |
Lebanon says a military operation against Islamist fighters based in a Palestinian refugee camp has ended after a month-long battle.
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