Charbel Says Security Situation Improving, Calls for 'Political Understanding' to Confront Attacks

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel has warned that rocket attacks and bombings would not stop even if the suspects involved in the latest attacks in Baabda district were arrested but he expressed optimism on the security situation.

In an interview with An Nahar newspaper published on Sunday, Charbel said: “We should arrest the perpetrators.”

“But even if we do so and we know who they are, would the rocket attacks and roadside and car bombings stop?” he wondered.

“I don't think there is one party behind them,” he said. “These bombings are the result of political tension and there is one solution which comes through political understanding against the plot on Lebanon.”

A rocket landed in the garden of the Freiha villa that is located near the Officers' Club in the Baabda area near the presidential palace on Thursday night.

A second rocket landed near the Khashoqji castle in al-Yarzeh.

The blasts were the latest in a series of rocket attacks that have targeted locations near Beirut and bombings that have targeted Hizbullah convoys or areas that are the party's stronghold in the past two months.

Despite his hints that such attacks, which are a direct fallout from the war in Syria, would not stop, Charbel said the security situation in Lebanon was improving.

When told by his interviewer that security forces and the army had failed to make many arrests, Charbel said: “When we find a lead we follow it till the end.”

“The army has lately arrested suspects involved in many incidents after it received the necessary information. This means that we arrest the perpetrator when we know who he is.”

“If you are accusing us of not arresting the culprits even if we know them, then you could accuse us of plotting against the country,” Charbel told the interviewer.

“I can confirm to you that 70 to 80 percent of crimes are being resolved,” he stressed.

“How about bigger crimes?” asked the interviewer, then Charbel replied that “big crimes are well planned and need bigger efforts and more time” to be resolved.