Hussein DakroubNizar Hassan| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Security forces stormed Lebanon’s notorious Roumieh Prison Monday, transferring militant Islamists to another jail block, in an unprecedented nine-hour operation linked to last week’s twin suicide bombings in the northern city of Tripoli.
A security source told The Daily Star that security forces raided the prison Monday morning, clearing the jail’s Block B of its Islamist inmates after intercepting calls between the militants and members of the cell behind Saturday’s suicide bombings in Tripoli that killed at least nine people and wounded more than 30.
“We have ended the legend that was Roumieh Prison and we have begun a new phase,” Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk told a news conference at the prison after overseeing the security operation at the overcrowded facility. He noted that a large part of the suicide bombings that targeted a crowded cafe in the predominantly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli was directed from the Block B section.
Investigations probing the Tripoli bombings led security forces to intercept calls between Islamist inmates in Block B and the two suicide bombers who carried out the twin attack, Machnouk said.
“The operations room in Roumieh Prison that directed many terrorist operations in Lebanon and which was in contact with terrorist bases in the region has ended today,” he added.
Machnouk said the raid was carried out in “a clean and professional manner,” noting that no inmates were injured in the process. He said the operation had been prepared three or four months ago and Monday was the right time to carry it out, two days after the Tripoli bombings. “The operation came as a result of a political decision backed by all political parties.”
He added that the operation was carried out by the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch and its elite unit, known as Al-Fouhoud (Arabic for panthers), in cooperation with and support from the Army.
“What was happening in Block B could not continue,” Machnouk said, adding that Block B Islamist prisoners were transferred to the newly rehabilitated Block D. “Confronting terrorism will continue. We will continue with the security plan.” Machnouk said Roumieh Prison was originally built to hold about 3,500 inmates, but it is now crammed with 8,000 prisoners.
The clearing of the prison’s Block B came after years of warnings that the overcrowded section was a meeting point for militants to plot attacks. Prisoners were known to call into TV shows using mobile phones smuggled into the facility, where many detainees have been held for years without trial.
Machnouk reiterated that preliminary investigations indicate the two suicide bombers were affiliated to ISIS, despite the Nusra Front’s claim of responsibility in which it named the bombers before their identities were publicly revealed.
The ISF had announced that the plan was to move some prisoners out of the Block B, but The Daily Star’s security source said a decision was made to clear all cells after witnessing the great damage to the prison’s infrastructure.
Block B is known for holding many suspected and convicted Islamist militants who manage to operate with relative impunity from inside the prison.
The ISF started its operation at 7 a.m., and a security perimeter has been imposed around Roumieh, the security source said. As the operation got underway, Lebanese Army helicopters hovered at low altitudes above the overcrowded complex.
The source stressed that the operation’s purpose was first to separate prisoners in well-monitored cells and to end the previous chaos, where they had illicit access to mobile phones and the Internet. “Security forces have seized all phones,” Machnouk said, adding that the move served to “stop a process of communication that was facilitating terrorism.”
As the raid began, some prisoners burned their mattresses in protest but no casualties were recorded.
Machnouk and the ISF said some prisoners had links to the twin suicide bombing in Tripoli.
In response to the Roumieh raid, the Nusra Front warned that all the Lebanese would pay for what it called the Lebanese Army’s “reckless acts.”
“All Lebanese sects must bear the consequences of the Lebanese Army’s reckless acts,” the group said on its Twitter account Monday night.
Earlier, the Nusra Front, which along with ISIS is holding 25 Lebanese servicemen captive near the border with Syria, threatened to resume killing the captives.
“Due to the deterioration of the security situation in Lebanon, you will hear some surprises about the fate of our war captives, so wait for it,” it said on its Twitter account. The same account later showed a picture of a dozen captive soldiers laying face down in the snow and five gunmen standing behind them with a caption that read: “Who will pay the price?”
Machnouk downplayed the Nusra Front’s threat to harm the 25 Lebanese captives, saying that “Nusra wouldn’t hurt the servicemen because security forces didn’t mistreat the prisoners.”
Roumieh’s Block B holds around 900 prisoners, including more than 300 who are labeled as terrorists by security forces.
Excluding Lebanese prisoners, most inmates in Block B are Syrians and Palestinians – though other Arab and non-Arab nationals are also present. The block also boasts a collection of dangerous individuals accused of belonging to militant Islamist movements such as ISIS; Al-Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front; and Fatah al-Islam, among others.
Protesting the crackdown in Roumieh, a number of relatives of Islamist prisoners attempted to block roads at Tripoli’s Abu Ali roundabout, but the Lebanese Army quickly intervened to open the roads.
A grenade blast was later heard in Bab al-Tabbaneh area in Tripoli around 10 a.m., while people riding a Renault Rapid car were stopped by the Army for using a loudspeaker to call for protests and road closures.
In the southern city of Sidon, masked gunmen who had briefly cut off roads leading to two neighborhoods inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, pulled out after the camp’s security committee intervened to ease tensions, security sources said.
The Islamist gunmen, who are led by Palestinian commander Haitham al-Shaabi, had fanned out across the streets, blocking access to Al-Tawarek and Taamir neighborhoods for a while before they were ordered to retreat, the sources said.
But relatives of Palestinian inmates from the Mubarak family insisted on blocking streets inside the camp, ignoring the committee’s call for ending their protest.
They said they had received information from inside Roumieh Prison that one of their relatives had been wounded in the raid. However, the ISF said in a statement that no prisoners were wounded during the operation. – Additional reporting by Antoine Amrieh and Mohammed Zaatari
