The Internal Security Forces Information Division arrested two suspected Daesh (ISIS) members for allegedly planning attacks in Lebanon, the ISF said in a statement Friday. According to the statement, the first suspect, identified as Lebanese national H.S., admitted to contacting members of Daesh based in Syria after having been released from Roumieh prison, where he had served a three-year sentence for belonging to Daesh.

Upon his release, in 2017, he contacted a relative who was a Daesh fighter in Syria, M.S., in hopes of also fighting alongside the group there.

M.S. told H.S. to work for Daesh in Lebanon instead by targeting Lebanese Army members and checkpoints. M.S. tasked him with targeting Army checkpoints in the north, and said he would be provided with the necessary weapons and an explosives belt.

M.S. then referred H.S. to a person named Abu Hicham, with whom H.S. was subsequently in regular contact. Abu Hicham asked H.S. to target a church in Lebanon.

H.S. was asked to target the Army’s Beddawi checkpoint, with the aim of shooting the three soldiers on duty with a rifle.

All of the weapons were meant to be transported from Syria through Akkar’s Wadi Khaled.

H.S. agreed to what both M.S. and Abu Hicham asked of him “with enthusiasm,” the statement said, and was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the explosives belt and other weapons.

At the time of his arrest in Wadi al-Nahleh in northern Lebanon’s Minyeh-Dinnieh district, H.S. had not yet received any weapons.

The second suspect, identified as Lebanese national A.S., was a relative of his. H.S. notified A.S. of his plans of attack and asked him to join Daesh, to which A.S. agreed.

A.S. also contacted Abu Hicham, who asked him to attack Army checkpoints and a church, but A.S. refused the order. He also did not notify authorities of H.S.’s planned attacks, according to the statement.

Both A.S. and H.S. were referred to the relevant authorities, and an investigation is ongoing.

M.S. is believed to still be at large in Syria. The statement did not provide further information regarding Abu Hicham’s whereabouts.