The Lebanese military judiciary issued arrest warrants Tuesday against 14 people for planning to carry out terrorist acts while Hizbullah confirmed the suspects intended to assassinate the group's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Charges included forming "a gang with the intent of carrying out attacks against the state and terrorist acts and trading in arms and bombs," but did not explicitly state that a plot to kill Nasrallah had been in the works.Military intelligence arrested nine of the 14 suspects, eight Lebanese and one Palestinian - the other five are still at large - and seized weapons, officials announced Monday, following reports by daily newspaper As-Safir that a gang was detained for plotting to kill Nasrallah on his way to the national dialogue. A statement issued by the Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc headed by MP Mohammad Raad condemned the "terrorist" plot against Nasrallah, stressing it served Israel's interests. But Raad said Hizbullah would continue its participation in the national dialogue, despite the plan to murder Nasrallah.
A Hizbullah spokesperson told The Daily Star Israel had long been planning to kill Nasrallah, and added that the investigation should continue to determine whether those had links to Israel's secret service. Nasrallah's predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi, was killed in an Israeli raid in 1992.
Earlier Monday, Nasrallah's political adviser, Hussein Khalil, station confirmed As-Safir's reports in a television interview with Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV. He said "information collected by Hizbullah's security apparatus converged with that of Lebanese intelligence, leading to unearthing the network in question." Khalil said focus should next be on determining the political background of the plotters and blamed "the enemies of Lebanon and the enemies of the (Arab) nation," in an apparent reference to Israel. Meanwhile, a judicial source said reports about Nasrallah being the target of the arrested group were "exaggerations," and could not yet be confirmed.