Lebanese forces dismantle Daesh cell disguised as football team

Lebanese security forces have broken up a Daesh-affiliated cell operating under the disguise of a football team but actually planning to carry out acts of terror in the Arab country through recruitment of young men.

According to Press TV, the General Directorate of the Lebanese General Security, in a statement released on Wednesday, announced that four Syrian members of the Takfiri group, nationals identified by their initials as B.S., Kh.S., M.Z. and Y.Z., had been recently arrested during a counter-terrorism operation.

The statement noted that the detainees have confessed to links to Daesh, and that B.S has already sent his wife to Syria to join her family, who are also loyalists to the Takfiri terrorist group.

B.S. then pledged his allegiance to Daesh in front of his wife’s brother Mohammad, who is believed to be a Daesh terrorist in Syria's troubled and terrorist-held northern city of Raqqah, which has been the de facto capital of the terror network.

He was then put through to Abu Omar al-Shami, who is believed to be a Daesh “immigration officer” in Raqqah.

Having found it rather difficult to move between Syria and Lebanon, members of the terror cell decided to create a Daesh network inside Lebanon. Their goal was to recruit young Lebanese and Syrian men in the hope of forming numerous Daesh sleeper cells across Lebanon.

The suspects are believed to have recruited numerous young men to join them under the pretext that they were starting a football team.

The team’s training sessions, however, were regularly interrupted by religious lessons that focused heavily on indoctrinating the new recruits with Daesh's extremist ideology.

All the four suspects have been referred to the judiciary for further interrogation, and work is underway to arrest the remaining members of the terror network.

ME