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BEIRUT (AFP) - Islamists in north Lebanon cast doubt Monday on the authenticity of a statement allegedly made by Islamic activists that threatened to eliminate eight MPs if some activists were not promptly freed from prison. The statement issued Friday amounts to "suspicious intrigue in form and substance," said a group of relatives of some 30 activists arrested after clashes with the Lebanese army in January. "We believe that the suspect parties want to damage security and hurt the cause of our imprisoned sons, and provide pretexts for a campaign against Muslims," the relatives' committee said in a statement published in the press. The Islamic Unification Movement, a Sunni Muslim group, and other activist groups from the northern city of Tripoli also denounced the statement, which had been published in the press under the name "the young people of al-Takfir wal-Hijra." The daily newspaper An-Nahar reported that Lebanese security forces had dismissed the threat as "not serious, but aimed at provoking sectarian strife and anguish, and being more political in content than security-related." The As-Safir daily, meanwhile, reported that investigators have so far not linked any activist group to the statement, adding that "… certain phrases and terms have nothing to do with their rhetoric." The newspapers also said that the eight MPs who were threatened, all but one of whom is Christian, did not take the statement seriously. The threat had said the MPs would be eliminated if the activist prisoners were not released within 10 days. Al-Takfir wal-Hijra leapt to prominence at the beginning of January when hundreds of its members were involved in several days of bloody fighting with the Lebanese army in the area of Denniyeh in the north of the country. The clashes ended with several dozen group members dead and a large number arrested. Eleven members of the Lebanese army were killed, including an officer. According to the security services, 32 members of the group are still in prison. |
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