Several terrorist detainees have confessed to a plot by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to stage a ground offensive and control several regions in northern Lebanon to announce the establishment of the Islamic State in Lebanon.
A high-ranking military source told al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Tuesday that Imad Jomaa, Ahmed Miqati and several other detainees admitted that the ground offensive aimed at opening a corridor to the sea across northern Lebanon by connecting Arsal with Hermel, Dinniyeh, Akkar and ultimately the coastal city of Tripoli.
Imad Jomaa is a member of the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front whose arrest sparked the Arsal unrest in August, and Miqati was arrested in October in the town of Assoun in the northern district of Dinniyeh during a deadly army raid on an apartment that he and several militants had been residing in.