BEIRUT: Lebanon’s military prosecutor on Thursday charged two people with belonging to Islamist group Al-Qaeda and plotting attacks on the Lebanese army, a judicial source said.
"Judge Saqr Saqr charged two Lebanese with belonging to Al-Qaeda and planning to carry out a terrorist attack on an army convoy in Anjar," in eastern Lebanon, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
If convicted, they could face the death penalty.
The source said Saqr added the two names to a case opened last December, in which he charged 15 people with plotting attacks on soldiers, including planting a bomb in a military convoy which failed to detonate.
The charge sheet also accused the 15 of having ties to a Fatah Al-Islam ring based in the Ain Al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp, near the southern coastal town of Sidon.
In 2007, Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah Al-Islam fought fierce battles against the Lebanese army at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon.
The fighting killed 400 people, including 168 soldiers, and displaced some 30,000 refugees from the camp, which was leveled in the fighting.
There have been widespread fears that since the battles the group has switched its base to Ain Al-Helweh, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps.
