BEIRUT, Lebanon-- Lebanese authorities seized weapons and ammunition during a raid on an apartment that belongs to Sheikh Fathi Yakan, a Sunni Islamist leader who is close to Syria, local press reported on Friday.

The state-run National News Agency said members of the state security apparatus busted Yakan's apartment in Abi Samra neighborhood in the northern port city of Tripoli at mid-night Thursday.

Machine guns, ammunition as well as binoculars were confiscated from the apartment Yakan had used as an office as well as an arts institution, it added.

Authorities also seized guns and ammo during overnight raids on a school in Tripoli's Abi Samra neighborhood and on a house in Qalamoun, An Nahar newspaper reported Friday.

Meanwhile, security sources told the daily As Safir that a Fatah al-Islam ringleader in the May 20 killings of Lebanese army soldiers has been arrested.

They said Walid B. was detained Thursday evening in north Lebanon and handed over to the Lebanese army intelligence for interrogation.

The Lebanese army have been battling with the Fatah al-Islam's militants holed up in the Nahr al-Bared camp since May 20. The bloodiest internal violence since the Lebanese 1975-1990 civil war has killed more than 200 people.

The Lebanese government lists Fatah al-Islam as a terrorist network aimed at destabilizing Lebanon. -Xinhua