BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army raided Friday a truck transporting automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades on the Halba highway reportedly destined to be smuggled into Syria.

The truck driver, who hails from Wadi Khaled, a Lebanese town bordering Syria, managed to flee the scene, the National News Agency reported.

Ealier in the day, the Syrian-Lebanese joint military committee met to discuss the technical implementation of arrangements to prevent smuggling through illegal crossings on the border in the Bekaa.

High-ranking Lebanese officers met their Syrian counterparts at the Dabbousieh border crossing to coordinate steps to tighten security measures.

A security source told The Daily Star that the meeting was a follow-up to a visit to Damascus last week by General Security Director Abbas Ibrahim to discuss recent Syrian incursions into Lebanese territory.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government also came under fire from the Future Movement and its allies who accused it of overlooking violations and surrendering to Syria’s will.

A Syrian farmer inside Lebanese territory was shot and killed last week by Syrian soldiers who crossed into the Bekaa town of Arsal.

Bekaa residents say Syrian troops crossed the border to hunt down opposition figures who sought refuge in Lebanon from the Syrian crackdown on protests. Minyeh MP Ahmad Fatfat, a Future Movement official, said Friday that the government’s failure to end Syrian incursions into Lebanese territories would compel residents of the Bekaa to take matters into their own hands.

“The main problem is the official silence, which is close to treason, when the government abandoned its role in protecting the country’s sovereignty and its citizens. [This is an act] that will encourage people to protect their properties and souls,” Fatfat said.

“We refuse take security measures into our own hands and we demand that the state protects its citizens,” he added, urging that the Lebanese Army be deployed in the region.

An injured resident of the Syrian town of Homs was transported into Lebanon Friday morning and hospitalized in one of the region’s hospitals, the National News Agency reported.