Twenty people have been arrested, including the gunman, in connection with Wednesday’s shooting at the American Embassy in Awkar, according to a judicial source quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on condition of anonymity.
The Lebanese Army said it had wounded the assailant, before arresting him and taking him to the hospital. Qais Farraj, a Syrian, claimed to be acting in support of Gaza, where war has been raging between Hamas and Israel since October 7.
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Among those detained were his father, his brother, clerics who taught him, and “people with whom he was in continuous contact,” according to the same source, overseeing the investigations conducted by the Lebanese Army and police intelligence services.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the detainees are linked to the “jihadist group Islamic State (ISIS) or other terrorist organizations,” the same source added, but “the data available so far rules out the hypothesis of an organized operation.”
On the evening of the attack, the US State Department had said that Washington was “aware that the individual who was arrested was wearing what appeared to be an ISIS insignia”, adding that it was “conducting a thorough investigation with the Lebanese authorities into the true motivations”.
