The Lebanese army said today it had smashed a "terrorist network" which was preparing attacks against "the embassy of a major Western power" and other targets.
"Lebanese intelligence services and those of the Syrian army present in Lebanon have arrested the members of a network which was plotting attacks on the embassy of a major Western power and bases of the Lebanese army and police," an official statement said.
"The terrorists were also planning the kidnapping of Lebanese officials to obtain the release of certain of their accomplices who were already under arrest," it added.
It did not say how many people had been arrested or their nationalities.
The statement was issued a week after a Lebanese military court brought charges against two Lebanese nationals accused of planning three unsuccessful attacks against the US ambassador in Lebanon and the US consulate north of Beirut.
They were charged with trying to kill Mr Vincent Battle during a visit to Tripoli, the main Sunni Muslim city in northern Lebanon late last year.
The two defendants, five other Lebanese nationals and two Palestinians are also being prosecuted for a string of attacks using dynamite against four US fast-food restaurants and a British store over the past few months.
Anti-Western attacks, though all of a small scale and with no fatalities, increased in Lebanon during the US-led war against Iraq.
AFP