Lebanese authorities have foiled attempts by members of the Islamic State terrorist group to carry out three attacks near the capital Beirut that could lead to a large number of civilian casualties, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said on Wednesday, AP reports.

Mawlawi said the alleged terrorists, two of whom were arrested earlier this month, are Palestinians who recruited young men to carry out bomb-belt attacks in the predominantly Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of militant Hezbollah.

The minister said the attackers planned to launch firefights followed by suicide attacks in areas south of Beirut, including Ouzai and Lailaki.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for attacks that killed and injured dozens of people in Lebanon. In recent years, the level of such violence has declined after the extremist group lost territory it controlled along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

There have been concerns that Lebanon's severe economic crisis is encouraging young people, especially in the country's high-poverty north, to join IS. Recently, dozens of young Lebanese went missing in northern Lebanon and were later found in Iraq, where they joined ISIS.