Lebanese army plans to carry out 'sensitive missions' amid US-backed
Hezbollah disarmament plan
[August 30, 2025]
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s
military will soon carry out “sensitive missions,” the country’s army
chief said Friday, in an apparent reference to the Lebanese government’s
U.S.-backed plan to disarm the Hezbollah militant group by the end of
the year.
Lebanon's military will take necessary steps to ensure the missions'
success while preserving peace among the civilian population in the
crisis-hit nation, Gen. Rodolphe Haykal said in a statement. Lebanon has
a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah as well as Palestinian weapons in
the country’s refugee camps. |
Lebanese army soldiers escort trucks carrying weapons handed over by
Palestinian factions from Rashidiyeh refugee camp to the Lebanese army,
as they pass in Tyre city, south Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP
Photo/Mohammed Zaatari) |
|
The Lebanese government asked the army in early August to come
up with a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the month. The
prime minister's office said in a statement Friday the Cabinet
will hold a meeting to discuss the plan on Sept. 5.
Hezbollah’s leadership has vowed not to disarm, saying the
national government’s decision to remove the Iran-backed group’s
weapons by the end of the year serves Israel’s interests.
“The army is taking major responsibilities at all levels,”
Haykal was quoted as saying by an army statement. He made his
comments during a meeting with the military’s top generals.
Haykal added that the army is approaching a “delicate stage
during which it will carry out sensitive missions and will take
all the steps needed to make these missions successful taking
into consideration the preservation of civil peace and internal
stability.”
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said earlier this month that the
government is to blame if the situation gets out of control and
leads to internal conflict in the small nation.
Since the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war ended in November 2024
with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah officials have said
the group will not discuss its disarmament until Israel
withdraws from five hills it controls inside Lebanon and stops
almost daily airstrikes. Those strikes have killed or wounded
hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it killed an official with
Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in south Lebanon. Lebanese state
media reported that one person was killed in a drone strike in
the village of Sir el-Gharbiyeh.
Haykal was quoted by the army statement as saying that the
military is in contact with Syrian authorities to control the
border between the two countries.
Before the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December,
Hezbollah received much of its weapons from Iran through Syria.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights
reserved |
|
|
