Qahwaji: We Will Firmly Deal with Any Attempt to Create Strife

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji declared on Thursday that the army is keen on maintaining national unity in Lebanon.

He said before a spiritual delegation from Mount Lebanon: “We will confront any attempt by any side in Lebanon to create strife in the country.”

He therefore urged all citizens and officials to support the army and prevent it “from being dragged into factional and political disputes in order to allow it to perform its duties in confronting crime and strife.”

For almost a year Lebanon has been witnessing a series of kidnappings for ransom against wealthy businessmen and citizens with over 35 abductions being reported.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel has stated that the security authorities had put in place more than one plan to confront these abductions.

On Wednesday, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had warned of strife being planned by Sunni MPs and clerics, calling for all sides to allow the army to carry out its duties and crackdown on kidnapping gangs.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun had also warned on Thursday of the eruption of an “internal war” in Lebanon due to the “incitement by gunmen.”

He condemned, in a reference to the footage of an armed Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, the failure to arrest the gunmen.