Lebanon's interior minister announced Sunday that security forces arrested nine people over their alleged involvement in two deadly blasts that killed at least 44 people in Beirut last week.
Nuhad Mashnuq said during a televised press conference that seven Syrians and two Lebanese — one a would-be suicide bomber and the other a trafficker — have been detained, Al Jazeera reports. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts, which ripped through the Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood, and Mashnuq said the original plan was to have five suicide bombers detonate their explosive belts in a local hospital; because of a heavy security presence, they changed their target to an area with a lot of people. Mashnuq said the Syrians were detained in a Palestinian refugee camp in Burj al-Barajneh and an apartment in the Ashrafieh district where the belts were prepared. "The whole suicide bombing network and its supporters were arrested in the 48 hours following the explosion," he said.
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