Arsal is located in the Baalbek-Hermel governorate on the Lebanese border with Syria, with a 50km border. It has an area of 316.9 square kilometres, five per cent of Lebanon's total. It lies on the slopes of the Anti-Lebanon mountains opposite the Qalamoun mountains in Syria, where the well-known rock caves and grottoes served as a refuge for takfiri organisations back in 2014. Geographical proximity to the capital, Damascus, would facilitate bringing down the regime through long-term attrition in the form of guerrilla warfare against the regular army. It would also facilitate the creation of a Syrian-Lebanese area under the control of the Islamic State (IS) organisation — stretching from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast by way of Homs, Baalbek-Hermel, Tripoli, Dinnieh and Akkar — like the Iraqi-Syrian area stretching from Mosul to Raqqa. With IS also present in Sinai and Libya, this would mean breaking down the eastern Arab states in Africa as well as Asia into extremist religious entities. These, it has been persuasively argued, would serve the long-term strategic interests of Israel, whose essential religious identity Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has often reiterated. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati's government, meanwhile, was committed to a policy of non-interference, which prevented Lebanon from making a sovereign decision to let the armed forces defend the country, since the Taif Agreement gave this power to the cabinet. What changes have occurred in 2017, then, that might allow the use of military power to eliminate these organisations? External and internal circumstances played a positive role in protecting stability and ending the terrorist phenomenon in Lebanon. According to The Washington Post, American programmes to support and arm the Syrian opposition have been discontinued since Donald Trump came to power and his administration announced its determination to fight IS. This facilitated the elimination of the organisation in Mosul and Lebanon, for Washington did not object to Hizbullah pushing Al-Nusra Front out of Juroud Arsal, working in coordination with the Syrian Arab Army, which used fighter planes to bomb Al-Nusra positions in Fulaita on the Syrian side of the border at the same time. Nor did it object to the Lebanese Army preventing gunmen from crossing the border into the battle zone, with only some Lebanese voices objecting to Al-Nusra's elimination, unlike the official position. Lebanese officials have emphasised the role of the Lebanese Army in the fight against IS in Qaa and Ras Baalbek with the object of protecting Lebanese sovereignty and to liberate military personnel who have been abducted. Recalling similar victories in Danieh in 1998, Nahr Al-Bared in 1997 and Abra in 2013, President Michel Aoun's resolute position that eliminating terrorism is a national priority has consistently come through. Aoun's envoy to Arsal, State Minister for Presidential Affairs Pierre Raffoul, said the state would not abandon its children in Arsal as it did in the South and the Western Beqaa, which was considered an indication that the countdown to a military battle had begun. American support, which has been forthcoming in the form of military aid, was further demonstrated by the visit of the head of the US Central Command Joseph Votel, who surveyed army positions in Arsal on 8 June and praised the Lebanese Army's ability to secure the border with Syria, emphasising Lebanon's partnership with the US and citing defeating IS and maintaining security and stability in the region as mutual interests. Another factor contributing to the elimination of terrorism is the pressure exerted on Qatar by the Gulf countries and Egypt, who accuse it of supporting terrorism, which has isolated and limited its regional role. The head of Lebanon's Security Directorate General Abbas Ibrahim had negotiated the release of the Maaloula nuns with Qatari officials, and the Qatari royal Abdulaziz bin Khalifa Al-Attiyah was arrested at Beirut Airport on suspicion of funding terrorism in 2012. Lebanon went through a critical phase during which its security and stability were undermined by the Syrian crisis. But, according to statements by General Ibrahim, an estimated 9,000 supporters of the 120 Al-Nusra Front gunmen who had controlled Juroud Arsal left with them later to Idlib in Syria — something that calls for closer coordination with the Lebanese Foreign Ministry to avoid allowing the refugee crisis to be used as a pretext for bringing terrorists across the border.
