Lebanese authorities say they have foiled 3 militant attacks

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s interior minister says authorities have thwarted attempts by members of the Islamic State group to carry out three attacks near the capital Beirut that would have inflicted a large number of civilian casualties. Bassam Mawlawi said Wednesday that the would-be attackers are all Palestinians. He added that they were recruiting young men to carry out suicide attacks with explosive belts in predominantly Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut. Over the past years, IS claimed responsibility for deadly attacks that killed and wounded scores of people in Lebanon. Such attacks dropped in recent years after IS lost territories it controlled along the Lebanon-Syria border.