Report: Militants Seeking Safe Passage to Arsal

Jihadists, who have taken Lebanese soldiers and policemen as captives, are reportedly seeking to find a safe passage from the mountains on the Lebanese-Syrian border to the northeastern town of Arsal.

As Safir daily quoted informed sources as saying that the militants, who have been besieged in the area after the army blocked all dirt roads on the town's outskirts, are seeking the passage to guarantee their supply of food and oil.

A security source confirmed to the newspaper that the army isolated Arsal's outskirts from the town.

Approving the safe passage would mean opening the road for the terrorist groups to occupy Arsal again, the source warned.

The jihadists from al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group overran Arsal in August, killing and capturing scores of soldiers and police.

They later executed three of the hostages.

The army on Friday defused an explosive device weighing around 50 kilograms in Arsal.

The bomb was discovered as an army force was conducting an inspection patrol in the Arsal area of Ras al-Sarj, according to an army statement.

The 50-kilo explosive device was placed “in a camouflaged way inside a garbage bin,” it said.

It noted that the bomb was set for remote detonation.