[AnNahar] The Lebanese Army said it has arrested the suspected leader of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group in Leb
 ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade....
after implicating him in planning several operations.
"Following a series of security, surveillance and monitoring operations, the Intelligence Directorate arrested citizen R.F., nicknamed "Qasoura", a prominent leader of the terrorist organization ISIS," the army said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
Weapons and ammunitions were also seized.
According to the army, Qasoura took over the group's Lebanon branch after the arrest of several prominent figures in December.
The announcement comes days after a jacket wallah killed at least 25 people in a church in neighboring Syria, with authorities there blaming IS.
IS and other Sunni bad boy groups fought several battles with the Lebanese Army in the 2010s and carried out a series of deadly bombings targeting Shiite Death Eater group Hezbollah and its supporters.
But they were largely defeated militarily in 2017 He was described as ISIS’s top leader in Lebanon and “one of the most prominent leaders of the terrorist organization ISIS.”
Qaswara is accused of “participating in the planning of various destabilizing security operations,” the statement noted, adding that the arrest followed “extensive surveillance and intelligence efforts” by the Lebanese Army’s Intelligence Directorate.
According to the army, Qaswara assumed leadership of ISIS operations in Lebanon following the arrest of his predecessor - another Lebanese citizen identified by the initials “M.K.” and known as “Abu Said al-Shami” - who, along with several other ISIS commanders, was detained in December.
During Qaswara’s apprehension, authorities “seized a significant cache of weapons, ammunition, electronic devices, and equipment used for manufacturing drones.”
ISIS’s presence in Lebanon stems largely from the spillover of the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011. The group exploited the porous 375-kilometer border between the two countries. While ISIS never controlled substantial territory inside Lebanon, it sought to destabilize the country through attacks and recruitment.
Its early operations in 2013–2014 included targeting Hezbollah and predominantly Shiite areas with bombings. ISIS also collaborated with the al-Nusra Front in clashes against the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah near the Syrian border, particularly in the Sunni-majority town of Arsal in August 2014 and July 2017.
The group was also responsible for a number of high-profile attacks, including the November 2015 twin suicide bombings in Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah powerbase. 
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