BEIRUT: Lebanon's Military Prosecutor Saqr Saqr Wednesday issued arrest warrants for three suspects in this week’s suicide bombing in Shoueifat, south of Beirut, including the taxi driver who dropped the suicide bomber off moments before the attack.
The two other suspects were passengers on board the same taxi.
On Monday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt on a passenger van in the town of Shoueifat, killing himself and wounding two other people, including the bus driver.
Issa Ghosn, the taxi driver, told investigators he had dropped the suicide bomber off in the area moments before the attack, security sources said.
According to the sources, Ghosn told investigators that he picked up the bomber from Khaldeh, south of Beirut. During the trip, the driver said the passenger asked about directions to a factory that refills butane bottles in Bir Hasan. The driver told investigators that he dropped the man off in Shoueifat after noticing his passenger was armed with an AK-47 assault rifle.
Saqr referred Ghosn and two other individuals to the Lebanese Army Intelligence Directorate for further interrogation.
A source close to the case told The Daily Star that referring the three to Military Intelligence was aimed at verifying whether they had a link to or any knowledge of the suicide bomber.
Interrogation will also focus on the suicide bomber’s intended target.
The passenger van’s route was between Shoueifat and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Car bombings claimed by Al-Qaeda linked groups have targeted the southern suburbs of the capital, in attacks linked to the crisis in neighboring Syria.
Meanwhile, police cordoned off two separate locations in Beirut’s southern suburbs and searched vehicles suspected of containing explosives.
Two BMWs parked along Hadi Nasrallah highway in the suburbs were searched after Internal Security Forces received information that they might contain explosives, a security source said. No explosives were found, the source added.