Cabinet Throws Support behind Army in Preserving Security
The cabinet on Wednesday discussed the latest security incidents in the country and the loss of life and material damage that resulted from the unrest, stressing the importance of the army’s role in preserving security and stability and throwing its support behind the military institution concerning the measures it is taking across the country.
It also stressed the need to provide all the necessary assets to the army to enable it to perform its national duties.
“The cabinet asked the ministers of defense and interior to submit recommendations aimed at activating the role of security agencies, stressing the importance of following any incidents that may happen,” Information Minister Walid al-Daouq told reporters after the session.
“President Michel Suleiman said the Akkar incident shook all the Lebanese and that it must be addressed without any ambiguity, for the sake of the army and the country,” Daouq added.
“The president rejected any criticism against the judiciary over the arrest or release of any individual and said that any operation is based on information and that the judiciary has the final say concerning the details,” he added.
Daouq quoted Prime Minister Najib Miqati as saying that “the government has started to seek solutions to the incidents that happened” and that “civil peace is a red line.”
“Miqati said that the government will not allow that the country be dragged into the unknown and that it insists to carry on with its missions, noting that the campaigns against it will not stop and that the response will be through its actions,” the minister added.
The situation in the country deteriorated when the General Security Department arrested on May 12 Islamist Shadi al-Mawlawi in the northern port city of Tripoli on charges of contacting a terrorist organization.
His arrest led to deadly gunbattles between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which is majority Sunni, and the Alawite Jabal Mohsen.
Al-Mawlawi was released on bail on Tuesday.
The situation became tenser when rival parties fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in Beirut early Monday, killing at least two people.
The spark for the violence was the killing on Sunday of Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed, an anti-Syrian Sunni cleric, and his companion in northern Lebanon.
A Lebanese soldier shot the men at al-Kweikhat checkpoint in Akkar.
The kidnapping of around 11 Lebanese Shiites in Syria by armed rebels on Tuesday made things worse after demonstrators took to the streets of Beirut's southern suburbs and burned tires to protest the abductions.
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