BEIRUT: Lebanon’s prime minister said Tuesday his country was ready to bolster the army’s presence in the south after any ceasefire, adding Israeli troops were making brief cross-border incursions.
“Currently we have 4,500 soldiers in south Lebanon, and we wish to increase them to between 7,000 and 11,000,” Najib Mikati told AFP in an interview.
As soon as a ceasefire is reached, “we can move soldiers” from other parts of the country to the south, he said.
“The information we have is that there are brief (Israeli) incursions” into south Lebanon, he added.
Israel said it had launched limited ground operations in neighboring Lebanon about two weeks ago.
Mikati also said security had been tightened at the country’s only airport in Beirut, to remove any pretexts for an Israeli attack.
“The government is doing everything in its power to remove any pretexts from the Israelis’ hands,” he said.
He added that “tightened security has been in place for a week at the airport,” located near Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that has seen intense Israeli bombardment.
At the end of September, the Israeli military said it would not allow Iran to transfer weapons to its ally Hezbollah through Beirut airport and warned its warplanes were ready to intervene should any such transfers be detected.
The airport was previously targeted during Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006, prompting concerns as Israel threatened to unleash destruction on Lebanon similar to Gaza, where it has been fighting a devastating year-long war.
Lebanese Transport Ministry Ali Hamieh had previously denied Israeli accusations that Hezbollah was using the airport and border crossings to smuggle weapons.
Lebanon PM says ready to bolster army in south after any ceasefire
https://arab.news/vnvc4
Lebanon PM says ready to bolster army in south after any ceasefire
- Minister Najib: ‘The government is doing everything in its power to remove any pretexts from the Israelis’ hands’
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
