Lebanese Interior Minister calls for defence coordination

Violent incidents, including kidnappings, are on the rise across Lebanon Beirut – Georges Chahine The Lebanese parliament needs to act quickly to put an end to increasingly grim security prospects in the country, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said in a bold statement on Friday. “We are going through a really difficult security situation across Lebanon and the issue is not limited to any particular region as it takes on sectarian, political and regional dimensions,” he told a news conference at his Ministry in Beirut.
“I’m calling on parliament to put together a defence plan to avoid Lebanon’s division,” he said.
Charbel’s remarks come at the end of an emergency security council meeting in the southern coastal city of Sidon.
Tensions are high in Sidon after Salafist Sheikh Ahmad Assir threatened to enter an area close to the Bilal Bin Rabah mosque in Abra, claiming it was being used by Hezbollah for surveillance.
Charbel warned that security forces would “deal appropriately” with any armed presence in the region.
In Roumieh prison, Lebanon's largest facility on the eastern outskirts of Beirut, Islamist prisoners meanwhile held security forces hostage, after a small protest turned into a full-blown riot.
The police were released shortly afterwards.
Four gunmen also stormed Beirut’s Mohammed al-Amin mosque during a sermon by Sheikh Hisham Khalifeh, leaving soon after without incident.