Beirut Police Sets Up Roving Checkpoints to Reassure Citizens after Wave of Blasts

Beirut Police has decided to set up temporary checkpoints across the city in a bid to reassure citizens over their security in the wake of the latest wave of deadly bombings.

“The command of Beirut Police has decided – in coordination with acting Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous and as part of executing the resolutions of the command's council – to set up roving checkpoints within the capital,” the National News Agency reported.

“Units from the Beirut Investigation Department, its emergency squad, the Intelligence Bureau and the Judicial Police will be present on the ground to search vehicles and inspect their ownership documents – especially suspicious cars – in order to preserve security and reassure citizens,” NNA said.

In this regard, a temporary checkpoint was set up in the Beirut district of Hamra.

“Citizens and owners of shops and private businesses lauded the step, although it caused a traffic jam,” NNA said.

Since July 2013, ten bomb blasts have rocked Lebanon, six of them involving suicide bombers.

The attacks have been claimed by various jihadist groups, some of them linked to organizations fighting across the border in Syria, including al-Nusra Front in Lebanon, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The groups say they are targeting Hizbullah for fighting in Syria alongside the regime.

The heart of Beirut was rocked by a car bombing that killed former minister Mohammed Shatah and seven other people on December 27.

And while most of the bomb attacks targeted areas considered sympathetic to Hizbullah in the Bekaa and Beirut's southern suburbs, the northern city of Tripoli was also hit by deadly bombings in August 2013.