Israel and takfiri groups have one thing in common: inciting sectarian strife in Lebanon with the aim of destabilizing the country, according to high-ranking security sources.
“There is a link in the chain of military events that happened recently. There is more than a linkage between the Israeli airstrike in Qunaitra and the attacks by ISIS and the Nusra Front [on the Lebanese Army] in Ras Baalbek,” one of the sources told The Daily Star.
“Lebanon is facing an Israeli threat and a takfiri-terrorist threat, both of which are aimed at stirring up sectarian sentiments and sabotaging the current equation of stability in the country with a view to disrupting the atmosphere of the ongoing dialogue [between the Future Movement and Hezbollah],” the source said.
“However, the result was contrary [to what Israel and takfiri groups had planned] as most political parties upheld the internal dialogue and refused to be dragged into attempts to push the country toward a civil war or sectarian strife,” the source added.
The source called for assessing the security, military, political and religious dimensions of the Israeli raid on a Hezbollah convoy in the Syrian town of Qunaitra in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Jan. 18, which came entirely contrary to Israel’s calculations.
“Reactions from the Future Movement and the majority of the Lebanese political parties [to the Israeli raid] were united in absorbing the incident locally and in condemning the Israeli crime which was utterly unjustified,” the source said.
Hezbollah has so far kept mum on how and when it might respond to the Israeli raid on its convoy in Qunaitra which killed six party fighters, including a field commander, the son of the slain military commander Imad Mughniyeh and a senior Iranian general.
The Qunaitra raid came less than a week after fierce clashes between the Lebanese Army and ISIS militants on the outskirts of the village of Ras Baalbek near Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria. Eight Lebanese soldiers, including an officer, were killed and 22 others were wounded in the clashes, which erupted after ISIS militants attacked and briefly overran an Army post in Tallet al-Hamra on the outskirts of Ras Baalbek.
Political sources warned that Lebanon was facing security challenges as demonstrated by the repeated attacks of Syria-based jihadis on Army positions in Lebanon’s east, or in renewed talk about bomb-rigged vehicles spread across Lebanese territories, or the Israeli security alert on the southern border in the wake of the Qunaitra attack.
According to one source, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale recently conveyed a message from the Israeli side to senior Lebanese officials warning that Israel was determined to respond harshly to any military operation that might be launched by Hezbollah against Israeli interests.
The Israeli message along with the “security message” issued by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut last week warning its citizens against traveling to Lebanon heralded a difficult stage for Lebanon, where security developments gained predominance over political activity, the sources said.
With regard to reports about car bombs, security sources said authorities are currently searching for three terror suspects who have been equipped with explosive belts to carry out suicide attacks. The attacks would resemble one carried out by two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at a crowded cafe in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood in the northern city of Tripoli earlier this month, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 30 others, the sources said.
The names and identities of the three terror suspects are known, but the individuals disappeared a while ago and their parents are unaware of their whereabouts, the sources said.
Media reports said security agencies have received information about the infiltration of a field commander from the Nusra Front, identified as Saeed M., from Syria to Lebanon.
According to the reports, the Nusra official had held secret meetings with a militant cell comprising three Syrians in the Cola neighborhood of Beirut to plot terror attacks.
Meanwhile, a number of Islamist sheikhs in the Palestinian refugee camps have escalated their speeches against Russia following the broadcast of an ISIS video purporting to show a young boy executing two men accused of working for Russian intelligence services.
A Lebanese official voiced fears that militant Islamist organizations have actually begun planning to target Russian interests and embassies in Lebanon and Syria. Citing security reports, the official disclosed that Bilal Badr, a Fatah al-Islam official, had blessed the beheading of the Russian spies, arguing that the Russians have been the enemies of Muslims since the war in Afghanistan.
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