As the Lebanese army detonated an apparent bomb found near a school in the southern city of Saida and the Lebanese Internal Security Forces captured three trucks loaded with marijuana in the eastern Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah announced it was ready to cooperate with the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) in that very stronghold, the Bekaa.
Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, which is headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, have allegedly said they will not protect outlaws or cover up violations in the Bekaa Valley, the Lebanese press reported on Saturday.
The opposition-aligned As-Safir on Saturday wrote the ISF initiated a week-long crackdown on smugglers, criminal havens, and narcotics dealers and producers in the Bekaa Valley.
A security source told As-Safir that the cooperation the ISF had received during the last 48 hours was “encouraging.”
He said random raids on certain regions would occur in the coming hours and military check points would be established to arrest wanted narcotic dealers.
The drug bust comes shortly after international press, including Reuters and the LA Times, published reports that Hezbollah had ties to a Columbia drug trafficking network.
More rumors touched the Resistance this week, as the press ran stories that the party’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may have been poisoned earlier this week.
On Friday night, Nasrallah denied rumors that he was subjected to poisoning in an interview with the Hezbollah-run al-Manar television station.
Nasrallah said that these allegations were part of “a psychological war” on Hezbollah which aimed at giving the impression there were internal divisions among the party’s leaders.
“I sit here before you,” Nasrallah told his viewers. “There was no poisoning. It is pure fabrication.”
The Iraqi Web site Al-Malaf on Wednesday reported Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was poisoned last week.
Iranian doctors were rushed to Lebanon on a military aircraft to treat him in secret, the report said.
Al-Malaf also reported officials had considered flying Nasrallah to Iran for further treatment.
-NOW Staff