A fake Isis football team to attract young recruits
Training interrupted by religion classes on jihadist thinking. Four members of ISIS cell arrested, but security forces seek other affiliates.
Beirut (AsiaNews / OLJ) - A child recruitment network linked to the Islamic State (Isis) jihadist group has been dismantled in Lebanon, the General Security (Sg) reported yesterday. The group had set up a false football team to attract young people.
Four Syrian citizens, indicated by their initials B.S., Kh.S., M.Z. And Y.Z, were arrested for their membership of ISIS, on a date not specified by SG. During their interrogation, the four individuals admitted to having ties to the Isis.
One of them, B.S., reported that his wife's family, returning to Syria, had sympathy for the terrorist group. B.S. had sworn loyalty to Isis in front of his brother-in-law, Mohammad, a Daesh fighter (Arabic state, active in Raqqa, the stronghold of the group in Syria).
B.S. has since been in contact - specifically through his brother Khaled, already arrested by SG - with a certain Abou Omar al-Chami, a "immigration" manager in Raqqa. B.S. repeatedly attempted to go unsuccessfully to Syria to join the ranks of Isis along with his brother Sleiman's wife, who was also arrested.
Given the difficulty of the mission, all of them decided to create a terrorist cell in Lebanon. These individuals tried to recruit Lebanese and Syrian minors on Lebanese territory with the aim of creating numerous dormant cells of the ISIS across the country.
The group told minors that they had founded a soccer team. An SG statement explains that training was organized, but was often interrupted by religious classes during which they taught the ideology of the jihadist group. Security forces are looking for other members of the network.
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