Qaouq: Some Don't Want Ouster of IS, Nusra from Border Area over Electoral Calculations

Hizbullah central council official Sheikh Nabil Qaouq on Sunday accused some Lebanese parties of seeking to prevent the ouster of the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front jihadist groups from the outskirts of the eastern border towns.

“The government's failure to approve a national strategy to liberate territory occupied by Daesh (IS) and al-Nusra, and the failure to address the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon, are due to the presence of a camp putting its electoral interests before the national interests,” Qaouq charged.

“We will not tolerate the persistence of this crisis due to the fact that a certain camp wants to keep it confined to electoral calculations or Saudi diktats,” the senior Hizbullah official added.

He stressed that the national interest requires the Lebanese “not to ignore the occupation of our land by Daesh and al-Nusra” and to “put the interest of the Lebanese ahead of electoral interests or foreign diktats.”

“The crisis of the Syrian refugees is not the problem of a party, sect or region, but rather a crisis whose threats are affecting all Lebanese,” Qaouq warned.

He also cautioned that IS and al-Nusra are seeking to keep the outskirts of Arsal and Ras Baalbek a launchpad for “targeting the army, the people and the resistance” and that the border region contains “workshops for manufacturing car bombs, would-be suicide bombers, training camps and tunnels.”