Lebanon Says Foils Plot Against U.S. Embassy
Lebanon has arrested nine people plotting an attack on the U.S. embassy and kidnappings to try to force the release of Islamic militant prisoners, military intelligence officials said on Thursday. News of the arrests came three days after suicide bombings on foreigners’ housing compounds in Saudi Arabia killed at least 34 people, including seven Americans, the first major attack on U.S. targets since the war in Iraq. The Lebanese army said that with Syrian military intelligence it detained members of a cell planning “sabotage and attacks on various targets, the most important being the embassy of a major Western state, security and military outposts and kidnappings of officials” to bargain for the detainees’ release. The army statement did not identify the embassy or the people allegedly targeted for abduction, but military intelligence sources said the heavily fortified U.S. embassy compound in Beirut was the target. Full Story