NEW YORK (AP) — Two men from Michigan and New York City were tasked by a terrorist organization with looking for potential terrorism targets in New York and Panama, U.S. authorities said Thursday as they announced the suspects’ recent arrests. A release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan on Thursday said Ali Kourani, 32, and Samer El Debek, 37, were arrested on June 1 for providing material support to and receiving military training from the Lebanese militia, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist group. Ali Kourani, 32, and Samer el Debek, 37, were arrested on June 1 in the Bronx and just outside Detroit, respectively, US officials said. Both were hit with a raft of charges that include providing material support to Hezbollah — which Israel and the West consider a terror group — weapons offenses and receiving military-type training from group. In 2011, the release said, El Debek traveled to Panama where his assignment included “locating the U.S. and Israeli Embassies, casing security procedures at the Panama Canal and the Israeli Embassy, and locating hardware stores where explosive precursors could be purchased.”

A year later, El Debek returned to Panama allegedly to identify “areas of weakness and construction at the Panama Canal, as well as provide information about how close someone could get to a ship passing through the Canal.”

Each man was charged with an array of crimes, which could bring sentences of between five and 20 years each.
U.S. authorities charge two operatives, Samer El Debek, 37, of Dearborn, Michigan, and Ali Kourani, 32, of the Bronx, New York, belonging to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah with terrorism offenses, accused of plotting to target American and Israeli targets in New York and Panama.