Interior Minister Condemns Arsal Suicide Attack, Considers it "Terrorist Act"

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq denounced on Sunday a suicide car bomb attack on a military post in the border town of Arsal.

“The attack against the army in Wadi Ata region in (eastern border town of) Arsal is a criminal terrorist act that will not prevent us from implementing the security plan that the cabinet established,” Mashnouq said in a statement issued by his press office.

He pointed out that the “terrorist act targets the army and as well the Lebanese people and the state's entity.”

The minister offered his condolences to the families of the victims, stressing that the army will carry out its tasks in cooperation with the Internal Security forces to safeguard the land and the people.

“We will confront security violators regardless of their religion or political affiliations,” Mashnouq added.

On Saturday evening, three Lebanese soldiers were killed and four others wounded following a suicide attack near a military checkpoint in the area of Wadi Ata in Arsal.

An explosive-rigged vehicle exploded as it drove past a recently erected military checkpoint in the area.

The "Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade” claimed the suicide explosion, considering it a retaliation to the killing of fugitive Sami Ahmed al-Atrash.

“As long as Sunnis are targeted in Lebanon, be sure that we will respond to any attack,” the Brigade said on its account on the social media website Twitter.

The fugitive al-Atrash died in hospital on Thursday after he was critically wounded in an exchange of gunfire with an army patrol that raided his house in the Bekaa border town of Arsal.

The name of al-Atrash had been mentioned for the first time in media reports claiming that he collaborated with Sameh Breidi in preparing the first car bomb that exploded in the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed, a Hizbullah stronghold.