Lebanese Ahmed Al Assir Reportedly Arrested On Terrorism Charges While Fleeing To Nigeria

Nigeria Camera | War Against Terrorism

A man hoping to escape prosecution by fleeing to Nigeria has found that is no haven there.

Lebanese Cleric, Ahmed Al Assir, was reportedly held by Lebanese authority last Saturday.  He was holding a forged Passport.

According to media reports, Al Assir was caught at the Rafik Hariri International Airport, Beirut as attempted to Board a flight to Egypt using a fake Palestinian passport. He was reportedly planning to fly to Nigeria.

In a bid to escape successfully, he had changed his looks by shaving off his beard and putting shirt rather than a clerics robe and headwear, as the photos below show.  In addition, he reportedly also had plastic surgery to alter his appearance.  Apparently this was not properly done.

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Mr Al Assir became one of the most wanted men in Lebanon after his militia went to battle with the Lebanese army in the port city of Sidon in 2013, resulting in the deaths of 18 soldiers and dozens of Mr Al Assir’s gunmen, Nigeria Camera reported Tuesday.

When the war in Syria began emboldening extremist Sunnis in Lebanon and inflaming sectarian tensions here, Mr Al Assir swiftly rose from obscurity to become a powerful voice.

From his modest Bilal Bin Rabah mosque in the southern city of Sidon, he railed against Hizbollah and later the Lebanese state, accusing them of subjugating Lebanon’s Sunni community.

Mr Al Assir was ridiculed by his opponents for his hardline rhetoric and media stunts, such as a 2013 incident in which his followers forced their convoys through Christian-erected roadblocks to reach a ski resort and play in the snow.

But amid a leadership vacuum for Lebanon’s Sunni community and passions against Hizbollah and the state running high, Mr Al Assir’s strident tone struck a chord with many disaffected, radical Sunnis in the country. His movement even attracted Fadl Shaker, a Lebanese-Palestinian rooftop wedding singer turned wildly popular pop star.

At first, Mr Al Assir maintained that his movement was peaceful in nature. But slowly, the guise of a peaceful movement dripped away.

* New Look:

* Side New Look

* In his element before the new look.