LEBANESE security forces have arrested a number of Japanese citizens suspected of belonging to the Red Army guerrilla group in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, the Foreign Ministry announced yesterday.
The Lebanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Faris Bouez, said the Japanese citizens were being interrogated.
Earlier, the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, said the Lebanese authorities had arrested up to six key members of the Red Army, including a gunman involved in the 1972 Lod airport massacre in Israel.
Mr Hashimoto told reporters in Japan he had been informed by Lebanese officials that the ageing guerrillas and three supporters, all of them Japanese, were arrested in the Bekaa Valley, where they had been living for years.
Mr Bouez, speaking in Beirut, said: "The interrogation began a little time ago and we are waiting to see what are exactly their responsibilities concerning participation in any crime."
He did not specify the number of those detained or where or when the arrests took place, but earlier official Lebanese sources said up to six Red Army members had been arrested in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley two days ago.
"There are five or six of them and according to the Interpol arrest warrants, they are members of the Japanese Red Army," said an official source in Beirut.
According to the Lebanese officials the detainees included Kozo Okamoto (49), who was involved in the May 1972 shoot-out at Tel Aviv's Lod airport in which 24 people died and 100 were injured.
The Red Army, founded in 1971, is allied to hardline anti-Israeli Palestinian factions. The Bekaa Valley was a haven during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war for guerrilla groups including Lebanese Muslims and Marxists, Palestinians, Kurds and the Japanese Red Army.
There was no immediate indication whether Japan was requesting the extradition of the Red Army members.
The sources said the Japanese Ambassador, Mr Yasujji Ishikagi, told Lebanese foreign ministry officials on Monday that a Japanese security mission had arrived in Beirut.
"The ambassador told the officials that the mission is here to help the Lebanese government in the investigations and it has information it wants to provide the authorities with," the source said.
Japanese embassy officials and members of the security mission met Lebanon's Prosecutor-General, Mr Adnan Addoum, in the early afternoon over the arrests. Both sides declined to comment to reporters after the meeting.
Japanese media reports have named four of the detained as Kazuo Tohira (44), Hisashi Matsuda (48), Mariko Yamamoto (56), and Masao Adachi(57).