Editing 2000 millennium attack plots (section)

===Lebanon and Syria clashes===
{{main article|Dinnieh clashes}}
On December 31, 1999, attacks were launched by a group of up to 300 radical Islamists against Lebanese Army forces in the [[Miniyeh-Danniyeh District|Dinnieh district]] in northern Lebanon.<ref name="Soufan">{{Cite book|first=Ali|last=Soufan|title=The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda|year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IkMU-uOEiFIC&pg=PA144|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|page=144|isbn=9780393083477|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124025907/https://books.google.com/books?id=IkMU-uOEiFIC&pg=PA144|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="meforum">{{Cite journal|first=Gary C.|last=Gambill|title=Syrian, Lebanese Security Forces Crush Sunni Islamist Opposition|url=https://www.meforum.org/meib/articles/0001_l1.htm|journal=Middle East Intelligence Bulletin|volume=2|number=1|date=January 2000|access-date=July 16, 2017|archive-date=October 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028232949/https://www.meforum.org/meib/articles/0001_l1.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> The group behind the attack, calling itself after the apocalyptic [[Takfir wal-Hijra]] group<ref>{{Cite book|first=Barry|last=Rubin|title=Revolutionaries and Reformers: Contemporary Islamist Movements in the Middle East|year=2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XigAcphccngC&pg=PA18|publisher=SUNY Press|page=18|isbn=9780791487396|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124025840/https://books.google.com/books?id=XigAcphccngC&pg=PA18|url-status=live}}</ref> was led by [[Bassam Kanj]], a close associate of Raed Hijazi who had been indicted for his involvement in the Jordan bombing plots. Kanj had met Hijazi in the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan, and they later worked for the same Boston taxi company in the United States in the 1990s.<ref>{{Cite book|first=R.|last=Rabil|title=Religion, National Identity, and Confessional Politics in Lebanon: The Challenge of Islamism|year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3fHMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192|publisher=Springer|page=192|isbn=9780230339255|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124025841/https://books.google.com/books?id=3fHMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192|url-status=live}}</ref> The fighting lasted for eight days, and killed eleven soldiers, five civilians, and 28 Islamists.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Robert G.|last=Rabil|title=Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism|year=2014|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4pGrBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167|publisher=Georgetown University Press|page=167|isbn=9781626161177|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124025849/https://books.google.com/books?id=4pGrBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167|url-status=live}}</ref>

Lebanon being [[Syrian occupation of Lebanon|under Syrian occupation at the time]], the Lebanon clashes followed clashes in [[Syria]] between Syrian security forces and Islamists, some of whom were accused of infiltrating the country from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, that began on December 30 when several Syrian intelligence agents were ambushed and killed. The clashes lasted for four days in [[Damascus]], [[Homs]] and nearby villages, and the [[Hizb ut-Tahrir]] group claimed that 1,200 of its members had been arrested by January 2000.<ref name="meforum"/><ref>{{Cite news|first=Line|last=Khatib|title=Islamic Revivalism in Syria: The Rise and Fall of Ba'thist Secularism|year=2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QGhe5jU-l_oC&pg=PA194|publisher=Routledge|page=194|isbn=9781136661778|access-date=November 23, 2020|archive-date=January 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124025853/https://books.google.com/books?id=QGhe5jU-l_oC&pg=PA194|url-status=live}}</ref>