Lebanese Army Reopens Road to Arsal amid Increased Deployment

The Lebanese army reopened a road between two towns near the Syrian border on Wednesday to try to calm the mess erupted on Tuesday night.

Al-Mustaqbal party partisans managed to close several main roads across Lebanon, harassing citizens and asking IDs of the passers-by, in order to press the security apparatuses to lift the siege on Arsal northern town.

Residents from the Bekaa Valley town of al-Labwa had erected sandbag barriers at the weekend to cut off the town of Arsal from the rest of Lebanon, following intelligence reports stating that booby-trapped cars are smuggled from Syria’s Yabroud to Lebanon via the border town of Arsal.

The blockade also followed days of rocket attacks on al-Labwa which residents blame on Takfiri armed groups who have fled across the border to Arsal after a Syrian military offensive.

Arsal hosts tens of thousands of Syrian refugees.

The Lebanese army said in a statement that it was increasing its presence in the area, and the mayor of al-Labwa, Ramez Amhaz, told Reuters the road was reopened at around 6 a.m. local time (04:00 GMT).

“Traffic is back to normal,” said Amhaz.

Demonstrators blocked roads in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and near the southern city of Sidon on Tuesday in protest at the road closure affecting Arsal.

A bystander was shot dead during a protest in a Sunni district of Beirut. The source of the gunfire was not immediately clear.

Tensions have been especially high in and around Arsal after Syrian forces recaptured the border town of Yabroud from Takfiri terrorists on Sunday, sending a stream of refugees and militants across the border into Arsal.

Hours later, a suicide car bomber attacked a Lebanese residential area, killing two people.