Lebanese army arrests Islamic State leader in major security raid

The Lebanese army announced on Tuesday that it had arrested a senior leader of the Islamic State (IS) group in Lebanon, following a series of surveillance and intelligence operations.

"Following a series of security, surveillance and monitoring operations, the Intelligence Directorate arrested citizen R.F., nicknamed 'Qasoura', a prominent leader of the terrorist organisation Daesh," the army said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

The army added that weapons, ammunition, electronic devices, and equipment used for manufacturing drones were seized during the raid. According to the statement, Qasoura had been planning multiple "security operations" in the country.

Local media, citing security sources, reported that Qasoura was born in 1997, holds a master's degree in chemistry, and is skilled in telecommunications and electronic systems.

He was reportedly appointed to lead IS operations in Lebanon following the arrest of his predecessor, M.Kh., known as "Abu Saeed Al-Shami." M.Kh., born in 1994, was arrested by army intelligence on 27 December last year, along with a number of other IS commanders.

IS and other jihadist groups have previously clashed with the Lebanese army and carried out deadly bombings targeting Shia-majority areas seen as Hezbollah strongholds during the 2010s.

Militant groups remained entrenched along Lebanon’s northeast border with Syria for several years during the Syrian civil war, before being expelled in a joint military operation by the Lebanese army and Hezbollah in the summer of 2017. 

Lebanon remains on high alert for militant activity.

While the Islamic State never gained territorial control inside Lebanon, it once ruled large swathes of Iraq and Syria as part of its self-declared caliphate. The group was largely defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but its sleeper cells remain active in both countries.

Concerns remain particularly high in Syria, where the conflict-ravaged country is still fractured along sectarian lines. The new Syrian government continues to grapple with instability following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime nearly seven months ago.

Over the weekend, a bombing at a church in Damascus killed at least 25 people, the first such attack since Assad’s fall, which the Syrian authorities blamed on IS.