Interior Minister and Future Movement official Nouhad Machnouk said Sunday that the latest comments by Hezbollah's deputy chief Naim Qassem implied a plan to "destroy, not liberate Arsal." In comments published in Al-Mustaqbal newspaper Sunday, Machnouk said the outskirts of Arsal could only be liberated by the Army. "Liberating Arsal must not be through a sectarian attack," Machnouk said. "This mission is the responsibility of the state and the Lebanese Army and security forces." "They are the only people concerned with liberating Arsal or any inch of Lebanon's land, and we highly trust the Army and its leader." Qassem had warned in a speech Saturday that although his group would welcome a decision by the Army to liberate the outskirts of Arsal, the lack of action will definitely lead to Hezbollah taking the matter into its own hands. He also said that Hezbollah would be happy to cooperate with the Future Movement in such an operation. Thousands of militants from Al-Qaeda's Nusra Front, ISIS and other Syrian rebel groups operate in the outskirts of Arsal and the nearby Qalamoun area, where Hezbollah and the Syrian Army have achieved large-scale success since they launched an offensive earlier this month. Arsal is considered the ultimate destination for jihadis in case they incur further losses in Qalamoun and thus retreating north. Qassem compared the situation to that of Ramadi, where the (Shiite) Popular Mobilization forces were told not to intervene so the battle would be seen as sectarian in character. After Ramadi was lost to ISIS, the same officials wondered why the Popular Mobilization fighters would not liberate it. "We will not repeat the same experience in Lebanon," Qassem said. Machnouk said the comments by Qassem and those referred to Hezbollah's leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah Saturday would normally affect the ongoing dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah. Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun is also a proponent of an Army operation to push militants out of Arsal's outskirts. In his recent speeches, he said the presence of jihadis inside Lebanese territory is a threat to all Lebanese citizens, calling on the Army to fight an ‘inevitable' fight to liberate the land. ISIS and the Nusra Front, who have been fighting each other in Qalamoun for weeks, hold 25 Lebanese servicemen as captives in Arsal's outskirts. Nusra has vowed to "eradicate" ISIS from Qalamoun after several provocations by the notorious fundamentalist group.
