Beirut: It took the Minister of Interior, Nouhad Mashnouq, a full weekend to mull over the necessity to issue a formal communiqué to explain the breach of security after Hezbollah members displayed arms in the southern suburbs of Dahiyah in Beirut on Friday night.
On Monday, Mashnouk issued a formal communiqué that decried “a show of arms by the party [Hezbollah]” and “condemned and rejected it altogether”.
The visibly upset minister indicated the move was a slap in the face of the new government, which promised law and order for all under the aegis of the state.
As photographs of heavily armed militiamen masked and clad in black shirts went viral on social media platforms, Hezbollah supporters downplayed the event claiming the foot soldiers were being deployed to go after drug dealers and gangs.
Under mounting criticism, Hezbollah scrambled to formulate a response to the shocking military parade. It said the photographs posted on most social media platforms belonged to young supporters of the organisation, who were eager to help the Internal Security Forces (ISF). The statement said it was not a coordinated step authorised by the party’s central command, Of course, such lack of coordination would indicate a loss of control by leaders on its subjects, which was highly unlikely.
Hezbollah now claims that it contacted the group led by Abbas Harakeh, the alleged organiser of the impromptu parade, to desist from taking such steps, because the fight against drug dealers fell under the jurisdiction of the state and not under its own authority.
Past ISF raids which were carried out mostly in the Bekaa Valley and in rare instances in some areas of the southern suburbs of Beirut, resulted in arrests of street drug dealers and not the bosses who managed them.
The first politician to condemn the Hezbollah parade was outspoken former Minister of Justice Ashraf Rifi. After Rifi, Sami Gemayel, the chairman of the Phalange Party, criticised authorities for tolerating such a breach of order.
Fares Said, the coordinator of the anti-Syrian March 14 Alliance General Secretariat rebuked President Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah and especially its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. He said: “The words of the Lebanese president, who supports Hezbollah’s weapons, have made this display of strength in the southern suburb of Beirut a routine news.”
Media commentaries were equally harsh on the Lebanese government, many of which emphasised the irony of having Hezbollah allegedly launch a war on drug dealers operating in the Dahiyah, when the organisation itself is accused of making money through drug trafficking.
Al Nahar, Lebanon’s newspaper, questioned whether Hezbollah’s information bureau believed it had the right, regardless of how powerful it has become, to take the state’s place in internal security affairs.
