BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 7 (UPI) -- Security authorities in Lebanon stepped up efforts Wednesday to head off anti-Western attacks after a bomb targeting a Dutch evangelist and his family exploded overnight outside their northern Lebanon home.
Another intended target was the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Vincent Battle, who was supposed to die in a rocket attack on his car some weeks ago, security sources said. Lebanese General Prosecutor Judge Adnan Addoum confirmed the report, saying Khaled al-Ali -- was arrested last week in connection with bombings targeting U.S. franchise restaurants in Lebanon -- confessed that his Muslim fundamentalist network was planning to assassinate Battle.
A 2-kilogram (4.4-pound) bomb exploded Tuesday night just outside a building in Tripoli where Dutch preacher Jacob Gerifon, his German wife and their three children have lived since they arrived in the country a year and a half ago. A neighbor, Jordanian Jamil al-Rifai, was killed in the explosion.
Another neighbor, identified only as an Egyptian, was arrested by security forces.
This was the second attack on evangelists in Lebanon in seven months. On Nov. 21, Bonnie Whiterall, a U.S. doctor's assistant, was shot to death in an evangelist-run center in the city of Sidon in south Lebanon.
The Lebanese army announced the arrest of more suspects in a series of bombings that targeted franchises of U.S. fast-food restaurants such as the McDonald's and KFC in Beirut and northern Lebanon in the past year. Al-Ali was their leader, said Addoum.
The army statement said the detainees were planning to carry out "sabotage actions" in the country.
According to Addoum, a Yemeni living in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh in south Lebanon, ran the fundamentalist network that targeted Battle. Lebanese Army and security forces keep away from and do not enter Ein-el-Helweh and other camps in south Lebanon but have positions around the shantytowns.
