Charbel: Wadi Rafeq Victims Would have Been Alive if Border Better Controlled

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Thursday that four men killed in the northeastern area of Wadi Rafeq would have been alive if Lebanese authorities had the manpower to control the border with Syria.

“Had the border areas been controlled, the four men wouldn't have been martyred,” Charbel said ahead of chairing a Central Security Council meeting at the ministry's headquarters.

His remark was a hint that the attackers had come from Syria.

The killing of the four men on Sunday in an ambush in Wadi Rafeq was the result of sectarian tensions caused by the spillover of the civil war raging in Syria.

Two of them are from the Jaafar clan, another from Amhaz family and the fourth is a Turkish national whose mother is a Shiite Lebanese.

The Jaafar and Amhaz clans are well-known Shiite families in the region of Baalbek and Hermel.

Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said that the army intelligence was on Thursday questioning a man identified as Saleh Abdullah al-Fliti on suspicion of his involvement in the assault.

VDL did not say what his nationality was.

The caretaker minister said Lebanon was in need for 50,000 security forces and around 150,000 army troops to be able to contain security incidents.

Charbel warned that “Lebanon is in danger,” appealing for “everyone's cooperation,” including the media, to salvage the country.

He said the main problem lied in turning local political differences into international problems on Lebanese soil.

The caretaker minister also defended President Michel Suleiman, rejecting his use as a scapegoat.

“Every official in the state has his authorities,” he said. “Suleiman respects the constitution and the laws.”

The president has come under criticism for referring memos to the U.N. and the the Arab League against the violation of Lebanese sovereignty by Syria's warring parties.

He took the unprecedented move after Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, who is close to the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance, procrastinated in sending the memos under the excuse of studying them.