Lebanon Arrests ISIS Commander Over Plot to Kill Pope Leo XIV

Lebanese army intelligence has arrested a Syrian man described as one of the Islamic State group's most senior figures in north Lebanon, accusing him of preparing to assassinate Pope Leo XIV during the pontiff's visit to the country in late 2025. The Lebanese broadcaster MTV first reported the case on Sept. 23, 2026, citing sources and the findings of the army intelligence directorate.

The detainee is known by the name Al-Daamish. According to the reporting on the case, he previously held the position of deputy governor for Aleppo province within the organization, was jailed for three years by the security services of the former Syrian government, then escaped after that government collapsed and crossed into Lebanon illegally.

MTV reported that he has been handed over to the Military Court. The Al Arabiya account says his file is due to be referred to the judiciary once questioning ends.

The arrest happened in Batroun

Lebanese Army Intelligence picked him up in the Batroun area of northern Lebanon, a coastal district north of Beirut, following what security authorities described as intensive monitoring and tracking operations.

Information obtained by Al Arabiya indicates military intelligence had been following him from the moment he entered the country, all the way until they located him and moved in. He was under surveillance before the arrest, and his mobile phone was extracted.

The exact date of the arrest has not been made public. What has been reported is the sequence. MTV put it in a single line: he was placed under surveillance, arrested, his mobile phone was emptied, and he was handed over to the Military Court.

He was watching the pope's route

Army intelligence investigators concluded that Al-Daamish carried out surveillance on the ground, monitoring the areas the pope was scheduled to pass through and looking for a gap in the security arrangements.

That field work went nowhere. The reporting attributes the failure to the density of the security deployment and the strict measures that came with hosting the head of the Catholic Church, which left him no opening to exploit.

A papal trip is one of the harder protection assignments any country takes on. The pope moves slowly, appears in the open, and draws enormous crowds to fixed, published locations. In this case, the published locations were the problem for the man allegedly casing them.

From the Nusra Front to Aleppo

Al-Daamish is reported to have started out with the Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, before moving over to the Islamic State group. Within IS, he is described as having served as deputy governor of Aleppo province, a post in the group's own administrative structure.

Lebanese reports call him one of the most senior IS leaders in north Lebanon. The Al Arabiya account says he held a position of responsibility inside the organization and stayed in constant contact with its leadership in Syria after he arrived.

Once he settled in Lebanon, sources told MTV, he re-established contact with his old commanders and began taking direct orders from an Islamic State leader.

Three years in prison, then an open door

Before any of this, Al-Daamish was locked up. He was detained by the security apparatus of the former Syrian government and spent three years in prison.

The Assad government collapsed in December 2024. Rebel forces opened the prisons, state security institutions came apart, and he got out. He then crossed into Lebanon illegally and disappeared into the country.

That chain of events matters beyond this one case. A man who had been off the board for three years was back in circulation within months, and by late 2025 he was allegedly taking assignments again from commanders across the border.

What the confession says

Under questioning, the detainee admitted he had stayed in constant contact with the group's leadership in Syria, which handed him several tasks inside Lebanon aimed at destabilizing security and spreading fear among the population, according to the information obtained by Al Arabiya.

The account of his confession describes the assassination of Pope Leo XIV as the "biggest mission" he was given.

Sources familiar with the case said the leadership in Syria instructed him to carry out the attack, but that he could not move to the operational stage because he lacked the resources.

The accounts do not fully match

How far the plot actually got depends on which version you read. The army intelligence findings carried by MTV have him already conducting ground surveillance on the papal route and searching for a weak point. The Al Arabiya version has him stuck short of the operational stage for want of resources.

A security source went further on the timing, saying he intended to carry out the operation during the visit and had begun preparing for it, but never reached the execution stage because circumstances did not allow it, according to Lebanese security.

The three accounts agree on the outcome. No attack was carried out.

What the three days actually looked like

Pope Leo XIV was in Lebanon from Nov. 30 through Dec. 2, 2025. It was the second and final leg of his first journey abroad as pope, which began in Turkey on Nov. 27.

The Lebanese Army's schedule for the visit included meetings with top officials and with Catholic patriarchs, visits to monasteries and shrines, a gathering with thousands of young people, and a holy mass, with events spread across different locations in the country.

Every one of those stops was a published address with a published time. That is the security problem a papal trip creates, and it is also the reason the protective deployment around it tends to be so heavy.

The case now sits with a military court

Al-Daamish has been transferred to the Military Court for prosecution. He is expected to face charges of belonging to a terrorist group, planning terrorist operations, and attempting to assassinate an international religious figure, based on Lebanese media reports of the case.

The Lebanese Army Command had not issued an official statement confirming the details of the alleged plot or the charges against the detainee, the Kurdish news agency ANHA noted in its report. The published accounts rest on security sources.

He has not been publicly identified by his full legal name. Al-Daamish is the name used in the reporting, and some outlets render it Al-Daameesh.

The assassination was not the only assignment

Beyond the papal plot, the detainee was tasked with carrying out operations meant to destabilize Lebanon's security more broadly, according to Lebanese security. The pope was the headline target, not the only one.

Asked whether other IS operatives are still in the country, a security source said the danger exists, while saying the situation is under security control.

Lebanese authorities plan to pass what the detainee told them about his ISIS links to their Syrian counterparts. Security cooperation and coordination between Lebanon and Syria are already permanently in place, according to the Al Arabiya account of the case.

ISIS in Lebanon, without the territory

The Islamic State group has never governed a Lebanese town or declared a province in Lebanon, though it held ground in the mountains along the Syrian border until the army cleared it in 2017. It has still managed to operate there, and Lebanese Army Intelligence has arrested several senior IS operatives and other members of the group in recent years.

North Lebanon is where a lot of that activity has surfaced, and it is where this arrest happened. The suspect is described as having held a leadership role within ISIS in the north.

He entered illegally, linked back up with his network, took orders from an emir across the border, and, by the army's account, got close enough to the pope's itinerary to study it on foot. Then the security cordon held, the phone came out of his pocket, and the file went to a military judge.