THE head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah has vowed that his militant group would oust militants from a region on the border with Syria, but declined to say when the assault might happen.
In a televised address, the Shiite group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said rebel forces in the mountainous border area posed an unacceptable threat to Lebanon’s security.
‘This issue needs radical treatment. We are talking about a real aggression that exists and is present,’ Nasrallah said of the militants in the Qalamun area. The Lebanese state is not able to address this issue … so we will proceed with the necessary treatment and assume the responsibility and consequences.’
The Qalamun region straddles the Syria-Lebanon border and was a stronghold of Islamist rebel forces until a major operation by Syrian regime troops backed by Hezbollah fighters last year.
While most of the region was recaptured, Islamists remain entrenched in the mountainous area that runs directly along the border, which is porous and ill-defined.
From there they have launched attacks inside Lebanon, including in August 2014, when fighters from Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group briefly overran the eastern Lebanese town of Arsal.
A truce ended the attack, but the groups took several dozen Lebanese security forces with them as hostages when they withdrew from the town into the surrounding mountains. They have since executed four of them and Al-Nusra on Tuesday released a video showing some of the remaining 25 hostages warning they would pay the price of any operation in Qalamun.
On Monday, Islamist rebels led by Al-Nusra launched an attack against Hezbollah positions in the region, and a source close to the Al-Qaeda affiliate said ‘the battle in the region has begun’. Nasrallah declined to say when Hezbollah would launch a major operation in the area. ‘There are preparations being made. When we begin, the operation will speak for itself.’