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CAIRO, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Lebanon helped foil an alleged Islamic State-inspired plot to blow up a plane travelling from Australia to the United Arab Emirates this month, its interior minister said on Monday.
Nohad Machnouk said the men who had planned to carry out the bombing of a flight from Australia to Abu Dhabi had been under Lebanese police surveillance.
"The targeted plane had 120 Lebanese on board in addition to other nationalities," Machnouk told a news conference in Beirut broadcast on Saudi-owned television station Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath.
Earlier this month an Australian man was detained in Sydney during raids to disrupt what authorities described as an Islamic State-inspired plot to bomb an Etihad Airways flight. man was one of four detained during raids by counter-terrorism police in suburbs in Sydney.
Police allege one of the four sent his unsuspecting brother to catch an Etihad Airways flight from Sydney on July 15 carrying a home-made bomb disguised as a meat mincer built on the instructions of a commander in the militant Islamic State group.