The photo of the arrested suspect released by the General Directorate of State Security on June 25, 2025.
The General Directorate of State Security announced on Wednesday in a statement the arrest of a Syrian national who had illegally entered Lebanon and admitted to having received training with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), supervised by former fighters of the Islamic State organization (ISIS).
"A patrol from the Kesrouan office of the General Directorate of State Security successfully arrested the Syrian [H.A.] on June 25, 2025, who had illegally entered Lebanon two days earlier," the statement noted.
During his interrogation, the suspect "admitted to having received religious and military training with HTS under the supervision of trainers of different Arab nationalities who previously belonged to Da'esh [Arabic acronym for the Islamic State]." The now-dissolved faction of HTS was led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, who has since become the interim president of Syria.
"The necessary legal measures have been taken against him, and he has been handed over, along with the seized items, to the competent judiciary," the statement concluded.
On Tuesday, the Lebanese Army announced the arrest of a person presented as the leader of the jihadist group Islamic State in Lebanon. These announcements come a few days after a suicide bombing in Syria, which killed at least 25 people in a church and for which ISIS is believed to be responsible, according to Syrian authorities.
Though less present than in Syria or Iraq, the Islamic State group and other jihadist movements have clashed with the Lebanese Army and Iran-backed Hezbollah over the past decade, mainly in the north and east of Lebanon. They were largely defeated in the country in 2017.
