BEIRUT: Interior Minister Marwan Charbel has called for the deployment of the Lebanese Army on the border with Syria and for the demarcation of the two countries’ boundaries in a bid to prevent infiltration and smuggling. Charbel’s call, the first to be made by a member of Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s Hezbollah-controlled government, came amid a heated debate that has been raging since last month, when Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn said that members of Al-Qaeda were infiltrating the Bekaa town of Arsal near the border with Syria under the guise of Syrian opposition activists.
In an interview with NBN television Wednesday night, Charbel said he supported “the dispatch of the Lebanese Army to the border with Syria and demarcating it in coordination with the Syrian side to subsequently prevent any infiltration from both countries.”
Charbel expressed fears that the sharp political divisions between the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance and the opposition March 14 coalition over the 10-month unrest in Syria, in addition to the developments in Syria, would negatively affect the situation in Lebanon.
He called for making efforts to protect Lebanon from the repercussions of the popular upheaval against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. “We hope the situation will settle down in Syria as soon as possible and that all [parties] will sit at one table,” Charbel said.
The anti-Assad protests have sharply split the Lebanese. Hezbollah and its March 8 allies have backed the Syrian regime, while the March 14 parties led by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement have come out in staunch support of protesters demanding Assad’s removal.
The Mikati government has tried to dissociate itself from the turmoil in Syria and has avoided deploying the Army along the border with Syria despite a series of incidents, including Syrian incursions that led to the death of some Lebanese by Syrian gunfire.
However, the Future Movement and March 14 politicians have repeatedly called on the government to deploy troops on the Lebanese-Syrian border to protect the Lebanese living in border towns following the death of some Lebanese by Syrian gunfire.
Charbel said the row over the alleged presence of Al-Qaeda in Lebanon was settled last month during a meeting of the Higher Defense Council which decided to tighten security and prevent smuggling on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
“Minister Fayez Ghosn did not say that Al-Qaeda was present in Arsal but that its members cross the border, particularly through Arsal,” Charbel said. He added that Lebanon, like other countries, constitutes “an environment that embraces terrorism which grows in a poor environment where criminal and thief gangs thrive.”
“The country is governed by understanding at this difficult stage. It is very important to overcome these delicate circumstances through which Lebanon is passing,” Charbel said.
Although his claims on the presence of Al-Qaeda members in Arsal have been denied by President Michel Sleiman, Mikati and Charbel, Ghosn has been the target of a blistering campaign by the March 14 politicians, including Hariri, who accused the defense minister of making the allegations to serve the Syrian regime.
Meanwhile, Minyeh MP Ahmad Fatfat urged Ghosn to deploy the Lebanese Army along the border with Syria, adding that the defense minister’s remarks on the presence of Al-Qaeda in Lebanon hurt tourism.
“I request that you deploy the Army along the Lebanon-Syria border,” the Future Movement official was quoted by local media as saying. He added that the Future Movement has been calling for the border demarcation with Syria since 2005 but to no avail.
The Lebanese and Syrian armies have intensified their presence on the border since the uprising in Syria began last year in a bid to control illegal activity along the poorly demarcated boundaries between the two countries.
“Since 2005 we have been calling for the demarcation of the border with Syria. Syrian authorities declined in order to carry out their financial and arms smuggling operations,” said Fatfat.