Bassil from South: Army, Cabinet Should Assume Responsibilities, Defeat Takfiris

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil kicked off a tour on Sunday in South Lebanon, where he called on the Lebanese military to assume its responsibility in the northeastern border town of Arsal.

“The mistakes that were done in Arsal shouldn't reoccur and the cabinet and the army should assume their responsibilities and not become spectators,” Bassil said from the Hasbaya region.

He said in a statement that “the resistance was established due to the failure of the Lebanese state to challenge (the Israeli) occupation... and we are witnessing the same thing nowadays in the fight against takfiri groups.”

Bassil, who is loyal to the Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and his son-in-law, pointed out that “Lebanese men are combating the takfiris and defeating them.”

“Our rights has been taken by our struggle and not granted to us by the international law... and today we witness attempts to infiltrate our land by various means.”

Bassil's comments come a day after Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah claimed a major achievement in the battle with jihadists in the Syrian border region of Qalamoun.

The Qalamoun region straddles the Syria-Lebanon border and was a stronghold of rebel forces until a major operation by Syrian regime troops backed by Hizbullah fighters last year.

While most of the region was recaptured, opposition militants and jihadists remain entrenched in the area along the porous and ill-defined border.

From there, jihadists have launched attacks inside Lebanon, including in August 2014 when fighters from al-Qaida's Syria affiliate al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group briefly overran the Arsal.

As they withdrew from Arsal, the groups took several dozen Lebanese security forces with them as hostages and remained hidden in the town's outskirts.