Lebanese al Qaeda operative, bin Laden aid captured

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon said Wednesday it had arrested the top al Qaeda operative in the country and another man linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist group who were plotting to blow up foreign embassies in Beirut, assassinate Western diplomats and recruit insurgents to fight U.S.-led forces in Iraq.\nSenior security officials said the two Lebanese men arrested Friday along with eight accomplices were also planning to attack Lebanese security and judicial targets.\nInterior Minister Elias Murr, speaking at a news conference, identified the leaders of the plot as Ahmed Salim Mikati and Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib, both Lebanese, and said they had eight Lebanese and Palestinian accomplices, who were also arrested on Friday night.\nProsecutor-General Adnan Addoum told the same news conference al-Khatib was "the head of al Qaeda organization in Lebanon."\nMurr said Khatib "is an al Qaeda operative ... his role was to recruit fundamentalist youth to carry out operations against coalition forces in Iraq."\nAddoum alleged Mikati was trying to establish al Qaeda cells in Lebanon and had contacts with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the Iraqi insurgent group Tawhid and Jihad, with the aim of recruiting fighters to go to Iraq.\nAl-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad beheaded two American hostages this week and has threatened to kill a Briton also in their hands unless Iraqi women prisoners are released. The group has killed at least seven hostages in abductions this year and has claimed to be behind a string of deadly bomb attacks.\nMurr said one of al-Khatib's recruits was a Lebanese citizen who was killed in Iraq on Sept. 17. He was not identified.\nAddoum said the two leaders and their accomplices "cooperated and exchanged information" in planning simultaneous bombings of the Italian and Ukrainian embassies and several Lebanese security and judicial targets.\nThe suspects planned to pack a car with 660 pounds of TNT and use it to blow up the Italian Embassy in Beirut, an Interior Ministry statement said.\nThe 10 suspects also planned to assassinate employees working in Western embassies in Lebanon, Murr said.\nAddoum described Mikati as "one of the most dangerous people wanted in Lebanon" and said he was also behind crimes in Lebanon.\nThe prosecutor referred to the attack on a McDonald's restaurant in Beirut in April 2003, as well as in other attacks on U.S. and British interests last year. Mikati has been condemned to death in absentia by a Lebanese military court.\nIn 2002-03, a series of bombs exploded in Tripoli and Beirut outside American franchises, such as McDonald's and KFC. The attacks, which wounded five people, were seen as a response to Washington's policies on Israel and Iraq. Several people have been convicted in those attacks.\nAddoum said he had "unconfirmed information" that Mikati may have had a role in the slaying last year of an American missionary nurse who was shot dead at a clinic in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.\nMikati was known to be hiding in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon. The camp is notorious for its lawlessness and as a refuge for fugitives and Islamic extremists.\nAddoum said Mikati belonged to the "Dinniyah group" -- a group of Muslim fundamentalists involved in a clash with the Lebanese army in the northern region of Dinniyah in 1999. More than 40 people, including 11 soldiers, were killed in the fighting.\nLast year, Lebanese police arrested members of a terrorist network that planned attacks on the American Embassy and other western targets in Lebanon, as well as the assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Beirut.\nOfficials said they also had planned to kidnap Cabinet ministers and legislators to use them to bargain for the freedom of the Dinniyah suspects in prison.\nIn Rome, the head of the parliamentary commission for the secret services, Enzo Bianco, said the plot served as a warning.\n"The foiled attack on our embassy in Beirut confirms that Italy is a terrorist target," Bianco told the Italian news agency. "Today, terrorist cells in Italy can carry out attacks on our territory as well"