Qaeda offers $300,000 to kill Nabih Berri

The al-Qaida terrorist network has offered a $300,000 reward for the assassination of Speaker Nabih Berri and Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji, al-Akhbar daily reported on Tuesday. The newspaper said that al-Qaida members in Lebanon were offered by the network’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri $150,000 for killing Berri and another $150,000 for assassinating Qahwaji through a “missile ambush” of their motorcades. According to al-Akhbar, an al-Qaida member arrested in Lebanon a month ago and identified by his initials as S.K. admitted to security forces that al-Zawahiri is implementing a new agenda in the country by tasking his brother, a Lebanese residing in Pakistan, with building an organizational structure for the terrorist network. Al-Zawahiri informed the alleged militants through a letter he sent with his envoys A.J., who is al-Qaida’s foreign operations official, and his aide Aa.H. that they should take Lebanon as their base in the Orient and back affiliated cells in Syria through money and weapons. The letter also considered Lebanon a land for jihad to carry out assassinations against Lebanese political and religious officials and announced that al-Zawahiri will appoint officials for al-Qaida cells spread throughout the country under the command of Saudi national Majed al-Majed, al-Akhbar said. The process has already been launched and a new official for Northern Lebanon identified with his initials as K.B. was appointed, S.K. admitted to security forces. Al-Akhbar said that S.K. was arrested in the northern city of Tripoli after he was tasked by his brother, the Lebanese residing in Pakistan, with receiving $40,000 in cash from a Kuwaiti in Beirut’s Ain el-Mreisseh and then handing over the money to a Syrian identified as Anas. Aa. to assist the Syrian opposition. Anas had been tasked with transferring the money to the al-Qaida official in Syria, al-Akhbar said.