Lebanon says it arrests Syrian Daesh suspect planning attacks

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon said on Monday it had arrested a Syrian suspected of links to the Daesh group who was plotting attacks on Christian and Shiite sites in the south of the country 

The Internal Security Forces (ISF) said they "tracked down and identified a man in southern Lebanon who actively publishes Daesh propaganda on social media networks and recruits new members" for the extremist group.

The suspect, a 20-year-old Syrian national from the south Lebanon village of Yater, was in contact with people abroad who helped him set up social networking sites to disseminate Daesh propaganda, it said in a statement.

He also used the sites to discuss plans to carry out Daesh attacks on churches — inspired by the deadly Easter bombings in Sri Lanka — and Shiite religious centres, it added. 

According to the ISF, the suspect had shared a Daesh video published in April purporting to show the group's supremo Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi hailing the Sri Lanka bombings. 

He also downloaded a manual complied by followers of the terrorist group instructing readers on how to build explosives, the statement added. 

He is also believed to have spray painted Daesh  slogans on walls in the Yater village.

The Daesh  suspect is also accused of recruiting a second Syrian, 29, who was arrested by the ISF while he was still in "training", the statement said. 

Lebanon has been heavily impacted by the civil war in neighbouring Syria since it erupted in March 2011.

Security forces have on several occasions arrested suspected Daesh members.

They are usually tried by military courts, but their trials have dragged on due to the amount of cases.

Lebanon has been rocked by several suicide bombings since 2013, some of them claimed by Daesh.

The extremist group in August last year evacuated a Lebanese-Syrian border region under an unprecedented deal to end three years of militants’ presence there.