Cabinet Legalizes Students Certificates, Mashnouq Says 'Thousands' of Gunmen on Border
The government on Thursday issued a decree legalizing the passing certificates that will be granted to students after official exam papers were not corrected due to a teachers' boycott, as Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq warned that “thousands” of jihadist militants are deployed on the country's eastern border with Syria.
“The issue of Arsal has become more dangerous than we already know and the interior minister told us that the Islamic State has become on the border along with new reinforcements,” several media outlets quoted Education Minister Elias Bou Saab as saying after the cabinet session that was held at the Grand Serail.
“The interior minister informed us that the gunmen are in their thousands on the border,” Bou Saab added.
Briefing reporters after the cabinet session, Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said Mashnouq offered “a detailed presentation regarding the security situation and the threat of terrorist and takfiri groups against Lebanon, as the rest of ministers voiced their remarks over the issues in question.”
Jreij quoted Prime Minister Tammam Salam as saying that negotiations over the abducted army troops and security forces had been launched “in a spontaneous manner by the Muslim Scholars Committee” before it suspended its mediation and that the government “did not have a choice but to defend Arsal.”
“After the Scholars Committee stepped aside, the government will not renounce the duty of exerting its utmost efforts to liberate the abductees and support the army in its confrontation against takfiri terrorism and in its defense of Lebanon," Salam added, according to Jreij.
On August 2, jihadists from the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and the Qaida breakaway group Islamic State overran Arsal, killing 19 soldiers and abducting 36 troops and policemen before eventually releasing two. Clashes renewed at noon Thursday, which has so far resulted in the disappearance of a soldier and the wounding of another, according to an army communique.
“The cabinet discussed the security situation and sessions will be held Tuesday and Thursday to discuss it,” Jreij said, reassuring that “the cabinet is on alert and it can discuss the security developments at any given time."
Separately, the cabinet approved "a decree containing extraordinary articles regarding the 2014 official school exams and the higher education of the students who underwent these exams."
The education ministry "will issue a statement clarifying the mechanism through which the certificates will be granted" to students, Jreij added.
Earlier this week, Education Minister Bou Saab issued a resolution granting passing certificates to students who underwent official exams, backed by the approval of the Shura Council and the support of the government.
Bou Saab's move drew the ire of the Syndicate Coordination Committee, a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees.
The SCC has been pressing for fair salaries for teachers and employees since three years and it has decided to boycott the correction of exam papers to speed up the approval of a controversial new wage scale.
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