Salam says state working to monopolize arms 'north and south of Litani'

The Lebanese army has increased its deployment in the country’s south over the past few months, confiscating Hezbollah’s arms and dismantling its positions under the terms of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement between the militant group and Israel, according to Washington Post interviews with PM Nawaf Salam, Lebanese military officials and diplomats.

So far, an additional 1,500 troops have been deployed in the southern part of the country, closest to the border with Israel, bringing the total to 6,000 with 4,000 more still being recruited, military officials said. The armed forces have also resumed reconnaissance flights, set up checkpoints and secured towns after the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

“The army is making serious progress. It’s expanding and consolidating its presence in the south,” Salam told The Washington Post.

A diplomat with knowledge of the matter, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject, said the U.S.-led ceasefire monitoring committee receives coordinates of arms depots and missile launchers from the Israelis or U.N. peacekeepers and then the Lebanese military is to take action. The diplomat said the armed forces have so far dismantled more than 500 military sites operated by Hezbollah and other groups.

Filippo Dionigi, a professor at the University of Bristol and author of “Hezbollah, Islamist Politics, and International Society,” said continued Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon would inflame Hezbollah’s support base and undercut the Lebanese army’s role. “If the situation escalates further, the already limited agency of this government risks being completely undermined,” he said.

In recent weeks, calls have mounted for the Lebanese military to disarm Hezbollah across the country, not just south of the Litani River in the region closest to the border with Israel. On a visit in early April, the deputy U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, urged government officials to exert full control over the country.

Salam, meanwhile, said Lebanon is working to ensure the state’s right to monopolize the bearing of arms “north and south of the Litani.”

Despite the progress the military is making in the south, it would face a significant challenge disarming Hezbollah in the rest of the country. The military is stretched thin as it has sought in the past few months to reinforce the border with Syria amid sporadic clashes between smugglers and the new Syrian government.

The army, like most of Lebanon, is also reeling from the country’s economic crisis — now in its sixth year — and relies on foreign aid to help finance everything from soldiers’ wages to fuel and food. The military has received more than $3 billion in aid from the U.S. government since 2006. Salam said his government is discussing a pay increase for soldiers in next year’s budget.

Edward Gabriel, a former U.S. diplomat who heads the nongovernmental American Task Force on Lebanon, said in an interview that the Lebanese military would need more training and resources to disarm Hezbollah and urged the United States to lend support.

As for the ultimate status of Hezbollah’s weapons and fighters, President Joseph Aoun has said a likely course would be to absorb some of the group’s fighters into the military, as was done with militias after the Lebanese Civil War.

But Dionigi said this could prove daunting, raising issues about the chain of command within the army as well as Hezbollah’s willingness to engage in the process. Hezbollah has been an independent paramilitary force since it first took up arms four decades ago.

Despite sporadic rocket fire, the army has a greater degree of control than before Israel’s war with Hezbollah, when violations reported by international peacekeepers would be ignored. Now, the government is committed to taking action, said the diplomat.

Another diplomat said that the army is doing the best it can and that the key to preventing rocket fire toward Israel would be a complete Israeli withdrawal and the demarcation of the land border between the two countries.