Major-General Abbas Ibrahim says the collapse of state institutions threatens to undermine the stability of the country.
The head of one of Lebanon’s most powerful security agencies has ordered his officers to stand firm in the face of its national crisis, warning of the chaos that would ensue if the state collapsed.
Major-General Abbas Ibrahim, in a message to General Security staff, said state institutions had been undermined by “the great collapse”.
He was referring to a financial crisis that has gripped Lebanon for two years and plumbed new depths this month as supplies of imported fuel ran out, forcing even essential services to scale back or shut down and sparking numerous security incidents.
The meltdown has deepened international concerns about Lebanon, a country pieced back together after a 1975-90 civil war and still deeply riven by sectarian and factional rivalries.
Ibrahim noted the effect of the crisis on personnel at General Security, an intelligence and security agency whose responsibilities include control of Lebanon’s border crossings.
“The crisis that Lebanon is going through may be prolonged. Your duty is steadfastness and standing as a barrier to protect your country and your people,” he told staff.
Were the state to collapse it would fall on everyone “and everyone will be in the eye of chaos and in the line of tension”, he said.
The UN secretary-general on Thursday called on Lebanese leaders to form a new government urgently – something they have failed to do for a year during which the currency has collapsed by more than 90 percent and poverty has soared.
Foreign donors say they will provide assistance once a government is formed that embarks on reforms to address the root causes of the economic meltdown.
President Michel Aoun, the Maronite Christian head of state, and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, a Sunni Muslim, have yet to agree on a new cabinet more than one month after Mikati was picked to form one.
Mikati took on the task after Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s leading Sunni prime minister, abandoned a nine-month bid to form the government, saying he could not agree with Aoun and accusing him of seeking effective veto power in cabinet.
Aoun, an ally of the heavily armed, Iran-backed Shia group Hezbollah, denied this and blamed Hariri for the failure.
Earlier this month Interior minister Mohd Fahmi rejected a request by the judge investigating the Beirut port blast to question Abbas Ibrahim
Ibrahim was the first Lebanese official to ever reveal that the blast was caused by the 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate that were illegally stored at the port since 2013
Al Jazeera
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