• Weapons discovered by soldiers in an underground bunker in Bompai, Kano yesterday.
The Joint Task Force on Thursday said it had uncovered a Lebanon-based Hezbollah armoury and terror cell in Bompai, Kano State.
The force, which said it found large
cache of arms and ammunition, also confirmed the arrest of three persons
in connection with the armoury and the cell.
A Lebanese national currently out of the
country reportedly owns the premises where the armoury and the cell
were found at No 3, Gaya Road, Off Bompai Road in the ancient city.
A statement by the JTF spokesman,
Captain Ikedichi Iweha, said the JTF operatives, comprising officials of
the 3rd Army Brigade in Kano and the State Security Service conducted
the operations.
The operatives, he said, uncovered an underground bunker in the premises where large quantities of assorted weapons were hidden.
Iweha, who said the construction of the
bunker was special, listed anti-tank weapons, rocket propelled guns and
anti-tank/personnel mines as some of the dangerous weapons found in the
premises.
He added that the weapons and ammunition were concealed in coolers, drums and bags.
According to him, the latest recovery followed an ongoing robust counter-terrorism investigation by the SSS.
Confirming the existence of a Hezbollah
cell in the country, Iweha noted that the SSS had arrested one Mustapha
Fawaz, co-owner of Amigo Supermarket and the Wonderland Amusement Park,
in Abuja.
The arrest of Fawaz, Iweha said, led to
the arrest of another Lebanese terror suspect, Abdullah Tahini, at the
Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport with over$60,000
He added, “Thereafter on May 26, 2013, one Talal Roda, also a Lebanese with a Nigerian Passport, was arrested in the same house.
“All those arrested have confessed to
have undergone Hezbollah Terrorist Training and further implicated one
Fauzi Fawad, also a co-owner of Amigo Supermarket and Wonderland
Amusement Park.”
When one of our correspondents contacted
the Director of Defence Information, Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, he
described the discovery of the arms and the arrest of the Lebanese
importers as “a major breakthrough.”
The action of the JTF operatives, he
said demonstrated the commitment of security agencies to riding the
country of illegal arms.
Meanwhile, the SSS said the weapons were intended for use against “Israeli and Western interests”.
“This is the handwork of Hezbollah,” Bassey Ettang, director of the SSS said in Kano.
“You can also be sure that if a group
like this is existing, then it may even lend support to some of the
local terrorists we have on the ground.”
Hezbollah is a Shia military and
political movement based in Lebanon considered by the United States to
be a terrorist organisation.
The sect was conceived by Muslim
clerics and funded by Iran following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon,
and was primarily formed to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Its leaders were inspired by former
Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and
organised by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto listed its
four main goals as “Israel’s final departure from Lebanon as a prelude
to its final obliteration.”
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