Salam Says Lebanon’s Front Concrete, Describes Border Measures 'Humanitarian'

Prime Minister Tammam Salam stressed on Monday that the country's front is holding up amid the ongoing dialogue between the political arch-foes, considering the measures against Syrians along the border as merely “humanitarian.”

“Terrorism has no limits but security forces were able to thwart a large number of terror attacks that don't only aim at killing people but planting division,” Salam said in an interview with Ad Diyar newspaper.

The PM said that al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front's alibi that the attacks are linked to Hizbullah's intervention in the war raging in the neighboring country Syria is not “justifiable.”

“When the confrontation is in-humanitarian, criminal and unfair no one will be able to deal with it.”

Salam said that the twin suicide attack that targeted the northern city of Tripoli over the weekend is a “message,” stressing that it “should be confronted by a political unity.”

“The course of the terrorist attacks is selective and random.”

Two suicide bombers who hail from Tripoli carried out Saturday's attack on a packed cafe in Jabal Mohsen, a Lebanese district that is largely loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Al-Nusra Front claimed the attack.

Concerning the measures taken by the Lebanese state against Syrians who want to enter Lebanon, Salam remarked that the matter has an “economic aspect.”

“A large number of Syrians who enter Lebanon are not refugees... Our decision is merely to differentiate between those who are refugees and those who are not,” the premier stressed.

Salam refused to consider the measures as a “visa restriction,” describing them as “humanitarian.”

The visa restrictions are the first in the history of the two countries and come as Lebanon struggles to deal with more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

The influx has tested the country's limited resources, as well as the patience of its citizens, particularly as security has deteriorated.

For months, Lebanon's government has sounded the alarm, warning the international community that it could no longer deal with the influx.

Starting October, the government said Lebanon would stop accepting displaced Syrians, with exceptions on humanitarian grounds only.

A U.N. report said on Wednesday that Lebanon is hosting the largest number of new refugee arrivals between January and June 2014.

UNHCR said Lebanon shot up from being the 69th largest refugee-hosting country to second largest within just three and a half years.

H.K.

G.K.