BEIRUT, Lebanon — While the Lebanese army continues to perform its multiple duties on several fronts, its challenges persist due to both financial and political reasons. But the result is one and the same — threatening Lebanon’s stability at this critical stage.
When speaking about the open fronts against the army, three of them can be highlighted. First, there is the Lebanese southern front along the Lebanese-Israeli border. In the wake of the July 2006 war that broke out between the Israeli army and Hezbollah militants and ended with the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the army had to support the UN forces deployed in the region with no less than three fighting brigades to maintain security and impose the state’s sovereignty.
The second front is located to the north and east, where around 278 kilometers (172 miles) of borderlands have been open to the Syrian war that has been ongoing for three years. A long and thorny borderline stretches along this region, allowing all sorts of operations that include smuggling merchandise, people, weapons and terrorists. This front includes the heated barren lands of Arsal, which stretch along 70 kilometers (45 miles) of bumpy, mountainous terrain. The army, in cooperation with Hezbollah fighters, is waging the fiercest battle near Arsal against the armed terrorists of the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al-Nusra.
Finally, the cabinet representing the executive authority said that the army must maintain security in Lebanese territory. This represents the third front, i.e., the internal one. The cabinet took this decision after seeing the small number and weak capacities of the internal security forces. The army’s internal duties include controlling around 12 Palestinian camps across Lebanon, from south to north, that accommodate around 270,000 Palestinian refugees. Add to that the ongoing bloody confrontation between the army and radical terrorist sleeper cells. The latest episode of this tragedy ended with the murder of a soldier on the morning of Oct. 17 in Akkar, which is considered the primary contributor of recruits for the Lebanese army, as many soldiers hail from this remote border district that is adjacent to Syria.
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