BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s "partisan immunity" has led to the failure of the security plan in Lebanon, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said Saturday, adding that security forces have primarily targeted members of one community.
“We won't accept that we be turned into Sahwa leaders specialized in imposing security on one part of the Lebanese as the other part enjoys 'partisan immunity',” Mashnouk said, referring to the Sahwa network of Sunni tribal fighters allied with the United States to combat al-Qaida in Iraq.
The security plan has been turned into a project that holds perpetrators of one community accountable while neglecting the others, the interior minister said, hinting that the plan’s implementation targets predominantly Sunni communities and turns a blind eye to Hezbollah-dominated area.
Alluding to the powerful movement, Machnouk said that the group was disrupting the security plan by “increasing the feelings of injustice and frustration which in turn also increases extremism.” The security plan’s failure results from “political reasons,” Machnouk said.
In another reference to Hezbollah, the interior minister said that “a Lebanese group considers its abilities to be greater than Lebanon but the hefty price of those abilities must be paid by all the Lebanese.”
Speaking during a memorial service in honor of the late ISF information branch head Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan who was killed in a Beirut car bomb two years ago, Machnouk added that “he was on the verge of discovering the truth behind the assassination.”
Hezbollah came under fire by several prominent March 14 figures, including Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi last week, who claimed that Hezbollah was implicated in the attacks on Army positions in the northern port city. Hezbollah rejected the claims, and accused the perpetrators of being close allies of the Future Movement, saying the party has supplied the necessary legal cover to prevent their trials.
Renewed tensions in Tripoli has disrupted the relative stability achieved since the implementation of a security plan in April to restore law and order to the city, which has witnessed a series of deadly clashes over the past several years between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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