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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