Qahwaji Calls for Political Consensus to Ease Burden on Army

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji stressed Saturday that political consensus eases pressure on the military institution and facilitates its battle against terrorism.

Qahwaji expressed hope that “politics wouldn't involve the military institution,” his visitors quoted him as saying in comments published in As Safir newspaper.

He pointed out that the army is fully equipped and on high alert to safeguard the country's borders from the southern occupied Shebaa Farms to the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

“We are planning defense strategies to avert all options... in particular if the situation along the country's northern border was stirred.”

Qahwaji's comments come two days after the cabinet tasked the military “with taking all necessary measures to deploy inside Arsal and protect it from attacks and the dangers of armed men.”

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had recently warned that the party's fighters would intervene against the militants of al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Arsal's outskirts if the state failed to do so.

Hizbullah, fighting in Syria to support the ruling regime, tightened the noose around the last remaining jihadist pockets along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Al-Nusra Front and IS group briefly overran Arsal last August, and are still holding 25 soldiers and policemen hostage.

However, the army declined to comment on Hizbullah's operations.

Last week, the army intensified its patrols in Arsal "to prevent any attack on the area.”

Hizbullah, which has said it wants to protect Lebanon "from the jihadist menace", has been fighting in Syria on behalf of President Bashar Assad's regime for more than two years.

H.K.

D.A.