BEIRUT: Better coordinated border management will be crucial for Lebanon to impede the threat of terrorism, security officials said Friday, as a European-funded project to improve operations at official crossings presented objectives for this year.
The EU-financed Integrated Border Management project is a capacity building initiative that kicked off in February 2013. The project includes a wide array of activities run by the International Center for Migration Policy Development, the EU’s implementing partner, including training courses, workshops, study visits and conferences seeking to strengthen coordination between Lebanon’s three main security agencies, the Army, General Security and the Internal Security Forces.
In 2014, the EU donated 1 million euros to supply border centers with new equipment, including an examination laboratory to detect false travel documents. The tool will be especially useful to curb terrorism and crime in the country as perpetrators are known to often travel with forged documents.
“We can win the fight against terrorism by fighting the prevalence of counterfeit documents,” said Col. Mohammad Dusouky, representing the Internal Security Forces at a conference organized by the ICMPD to highlight gains made last year by the IBM project. Security representatives from Lebanon’s three main agencies, as well as embassy representatives from European and North American countries were also on hand for the presentation held at Lancaster Hotel in Raouche.
According to ICMPD project assistant Majd Tohme, building up the infrastructure of border centers was a major focus of the IBM.
“Basically, the problem is there is no solid infrastructure for training, and agencies don’t have training rooms, desktop computers, workspaces or document examination labs,” Tohme said.
Since its launch two years ago, several countries have come forward to support border capacity. Germany provided training equipment and workshops, as did Denmark. The U.K. donated a telecoms network system, the U.S. an integrated communications system and Canada provided vehicles and motorcycles.
Security bodies also worked with the ICMPD this year to draft a strategy to better coordinate management of the border.
The strategy, Dusouky said, built on standard operating procedures outlined the previous year, which set out the responsibilities of each agency. According to the document the ISF would be responsible for following up with crime cases along the border, General Security would continue to operate legal crossings and the Army would control and defend the border.
“When many agencies have to work together, there should be coordinated action,” Dusouky told the delegates. “Unfortunately we don’t have this yet.”
In 2015, the Army, General Security and the ISF will conduct workshops to finalize a draft memorandum of understanding to serve as a legal basis for their coordination in controlling the border.
Despite the gains made last year, Lt. Col. Marwan Timani, of the Lebanese Army’s Border Control Committee, said a host of challenges lay ahead before Lebanon can boast a border management system as sophisticated as Spain or Poland, countries where Lebanese security officials made study visits as part of the project.
Timani said future land border regiments required better training and equipment, including a fully equipped operations room.
Future projects “must also raise the awareness of residents of border villages, so they are able to see how they can help [authorities],” he said.
Timani also said the number of border checkpoints should be increased to better control illicit cross-border activities.
“But the most important challenge is to ensure the Army succeeds in its fight against terrorism,” Timani said. “This fight will be the main challenge for us.”
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