RAS BAALBEK/ARSAL, Lebanon: Snow has melted, weather conditions have improved and clear skies announce the advent of spring. In short, terrain conditions are ripe for the anticipated “spring battle” between the Lebanese Army and Islamist militants from ISIS and Nusra Front who are clustered in the rugged mountains along Lebanon’s northeastern border with Syria. While Syria-based terrorist groups have reportedly been gearing up and preparing for the projected battle, which has so far been hampered by bad weather, the Army conducted a pre-emptive operation last month, seizing strategic hills from ISIS militants in the outskirts of the Christian town of Ras Baalbek.
When the battle will erupt, who will pull the trigger first and whether it happen at all remain to be seen.
Fears of terrorist attacks have tapered off in Ras Baalbek, which, along with adjacent Arsal, is regarded as a main front of the anticipated battle.
Mayor Hisham al-Arja appeared confident that there is no imminent battle in Ras Baalbek, in light of reports that ISIS militants have pulled out from the town’s outskirts.
“Things have changed a lot recently. For the past two weeks we have been receiving reliable information that hundreds of ISIS terrorists have retreated from the hills,” Arja said.
He argued that the militants have apparently been moved to the Syrian interior and to northern Iraq, where ISIS is engaged in major battles to keep control of large swaths of territory that it captured last year.
“Our brethren in Arsal have confirmed to us that Daesh [an Arabic acronym for ISIS] people have left their positions in the outskirts,” Arja said. “But anyway the Army and Hezbollah are prepared and ready to counter any possible offensive.”
The Army has massively reinforced its positions on the outskirts of Arsal and Ras Baalbek recently.
Troops seized the strategic hills of Tallet al-Jarash and Tallet al-Hamra last month, tightening the noose on the extremists and largely impeding their movements.
In Arsal, some 5,000 soldiers have secured their grip on the town’s entrances and exits, largely cutting it off from its hills and reducing supplies that reached the fighters holed up in the rugged mountains.
ISIS’ pullout from the border area with Lebanon was also reported by a leading figure in Arsal who asked to be identified as H. Zeidan. “Big changes have occurred in the past few weeks in [Syria’s] Qalamoun region, the most important of which was the withdrawal of some 3,350 ISIS militants who were entrenched in the hills east of Ras Baalbek and Arsal,” Zeidan said.
“The operation was carried out over 11 days, and was completed on Sunday [March 15],” he said.
Only 8 percent of ISIS fighters, who are originally from the border areas of Homs and Qusair remained in Qalamoun, a few kilometers across from Arsal and Ras Baalbek. Control over ISIS positions was passed on to Nusra Front militants and to rebels from the Free Syrian Army, Zeidan added.
A member of Arsal’s prominent Hujeiri family, who asked not to be identified, said ISIS’ withdrawal from Qalamoun took place as part of an alleged regional deal to entrust the Free Syrian Army and Nusra Front with maintaining security of the border from Al-Qaa, north of Ras Baalbek, to Nahleh, south of Arsal.
Hujeiri played down the possibility of an imminent “spring battle” in the border area as mere speculation and media propaganda. “Spring is already here, and what we have witnessed is pullout operations, not the opposite, which proves that the battle is in the media only. There will be no battle in the field, because the basic elements for it have faded away,” Hujeiri said.
Meanwhile, the Army is buttressing its positions in hot spots along 70 kilometers of the mountain range between Al-Qaa and Brital, south of Baalbek.
Army posts are mainly concentrated in Ras Baalbek and Arsal, while Hezbollah, whose fighters are engaged in the Syrian civil war on the side of the regime, has been maintaining fortified outposts in several other spots.
A military source refused to confirm or deny reports about the alleged withdrawal of ISIS militants from the border area. “The Lebanese Army is always prepared to confront any attack,” the source said. “We cannot say that the danger is imminent or not, but we act on the basis that danger is always there, even in peaceful times.”
Last week, Army Commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi said the military was ready for any attacks by Islamist militants when the snow melts in spring.
Lebanon’s Army of some 70,000 troops has received increased military aid from the U.S. and U.K. since ISIS appeared on the border and is waiting on the delivery of $3 billion in French arms purchased with money from Saudi Arabia. International support aimed at buttressing the military’s capacities in combating terrorism came in the wake of Arsal’s battle in August, when the Sunni-populated town, largely sympathetic to the Syrian rebellion against the regime of President Bashar Assad, was overrun by militants from ISIS and Nusra Front. The gunmen pulled out after four days of clashes, taking over 30 troops and policemen hostage. Four have since been executed and eight released, while 25 remain in captivity.
Residents of the border area, however, remain puzzled about the sudden arrival of ISIS militants in the vicinity of their villages, and are even more perplexed about their alleged withdrawal. “How was it possible for hundreds of militants to arrive from Raqqa through regime-controlled areas and deploy in Ras Baalbek’s outskirts in the first place?” Samir Shaaban, a resident of Ras Baalbek asked. The reported withdrawal is even more bewildering, he said.
Shaaban also questioned the imminence of the so-called snow-melting battle. “It is largely speculative. Just a possibility, which could be true or not,” he said.
If one is to believe Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, militants could be set to attack Lebanon any day now. The very near future should bring some straight answers.
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