Lebanon jails ‘terror’ suspects
Two Palestinians have been jailed by a Lebanese military court for being members of a group with suspected links to al-Qaida.
The court on Wednesday sentenced Hisham Mahmoud Taha to seven years in jail while Muhammad Ataya was handed down a one-year prison sentence.
Both confessed to being members of Osbat al-Ansar, an obscure group on the US list of “terrorist” organisations.
Taha, who was also found guilty of a 1999 grenade attack on a vegetable market in Lebanon’s largest refugee camp, said he had joined Osbat al-Ansar to benefit from Islamic instruction under the group’s fugitive leader Abdel Karim Saadi, but had later left.
Aataya said he had split from the group to join an offshoot known as Osbat al-Nour, which has been accused of targeting supporters of Palestinian President Yasir Arafat’s Fatah movement in the southern Ain al-Hilweh camp.