Lebanese army detains 50 in north after weekend clashes

BEIRUT — Lebanese troops detained 50 people in raids on towns and Syrian refugee camps in the north of the country, the army said on Thursday, part of a security crackdown after battles with Islamist gunmen over the weekend.

The army has mounted several raids since Islamist militants clashed with soldiers in and around the northern city of Tripoli from Friday to Sunday, some of the worst fighting to spill over to Lebanon from the Syrian civil war.

Soldiers moved on the towns of Al Minya, Mashta Hassan, Mashta Hammoud and refugee camps in the town of Behneen on Wednesday. The 50 detainees were mainly Syrian but included nine Lebanese and one Palestinian, an army statement said.

In one of the raids, soldiers seized a number of weapons including rocket-propelled grenade launchers as well as communications equipment, the statement said.

Soldiers also stopped and arrested a man at a checkpoint near the northern Lebanese border town of Arsal who confessed to being a weapons smuggler for militants in the area.

Lebanese officials fear Islamist insurgents from the Syrian war are trying to expand their influence into Sunni Muslim areas of northern Lebanon. They see a rising threat from groups such as Al Qaeda's Al Nusra Front and the ultra hardline Islamic State (IS), who may try to open up new supply routes between Syria and Lebanon as winter unfolds.

On Thursday, a military court charged a man it said was an important member of IS, a judicial source said, adding that 17 others were also charged in absentia.

The man, Ahmed Salim Mikati, was arrested by the army in a raid in northern Lebanon last week and was described by the military forces as one of the group's most important operatives in the region.

Syria's war has sparked gunbattles, bombings and kidnappings in Lebanon and forced more than 1 million Syrian refugees into the small Mediterranean country, putting a strain on its shaky infrastructure.

IS has seized large tracts of territory in Syria and Iraq and is the target of a bombing campaign by US-led forces in both countries.

The Lebanese army said at the time of his arrest that Mikati, who is in his mid-40s, had set up IS cells in Lebanon, had recruited fighters and was planning to carry out a major "terrorist act" with his son.

Lebanon has suffered from a series of bomb attacks and clashes with links to Syria since the start of the year. The northern battles at the weekend killed at least 11 soldiers, eight civilians and 22 militants, according to security sources.

The fighting marked the worst Syria-related violence in Lebanon since early August, when Islamist insurgents affiliated to Al Nusra Front and IS staged an incursion into Arsal and took around 20 soldiers captive.

In the southeast close to the Syrian border, Lebanese security services arrested 12 Syrians on suspicion of belonging to militant groups involved in the fighting at Arsal and of entering the country illegally, the army said in a separate statement on Thursday.