Investigations are continuing into the arrest of five Hezbollah members in a remote mountainous area between the Bsharri and Batroun districts of northern Lebanon on Tuesday, amid questions about the purpose of their movements and whether they were conducting surveillance.
Judicial sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that investigators were still gathering information and examining why the men had been moving through isolated, uninhabited areas.
“Preliminary information suggests they were on a reconnaissance mission to survey the area,” the sources indicated.
They added that the five were not alone but were accompanied by others monitoring them from a distance. Following the arrests, those individuals reportedly retrieved mobile phones from a room where the detainees had left their belongings. The five had been arrested without their phones.
The suspects claimed they were visiting the area as tourists, an explanation that raised questions, particularly because one lives locally while the others come from South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Further suspicions arose over documents and maps allegedly found in their possession, some of which they reportedly attempted to tear up as an Internal Security Forces patrol approached.
Asharq Al-Awsat also learned that investigators were leaning toward bringing charges against the detainees in their individual capacities rather than as Hezbollah members, as occurred in a previous explosives-smuggling case.
According to the judicial sources, the suspected surveillance raises questions about whether the survey was linked to security or military preparations, specific targets, or plans to establish a security or military facility.
Salam: No Limits on Investigation
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam followed developments from Antalya, where he arrived to lead Lebanon’s delegation to a climate summit.
“The era of avoiding accountability and covering things up is over,” Salam stressed, adding that the investigation would face “no limits other than those imposed by the law.”
Gemayel: Hezbollah Has Lost Its Way to the South
Lebanese Kataeb Party leader MP Samy Gemayel stepped up his criticism of Hezbollah, linking the arrests to recent security and political developments.
“On the roads to Jerusalem, Damascus and Sanaa, Hezbollah lost its way to the South and ended up in Fanar and the mountains of Bsharri and Tannourine, after Dahr al-Baidar,” he wrote on X.
He argued that dragging Lebanon into wars, defying state decisions, bringing in a truckload of explosives and deploying security groups in the heart of Mount Lebanon were threats to national security and civil peace.
“If all this does not warrant referring Hezbollah’s leadership to the Judicial Council, then the council should be abolished!” he added.
Lebanese Forces MPs Strida Tawk Geagea and Melhem Tawk warned of possible organized security preparations in the area.
They argued that the available information could not be dismissed as an ordinary security incident.
According to published reports they cited, the seized documents contained names of groups, assignments of personnel and references to weapons, including sniper rifles.
The lawmakers questioned why the detainees were in the area, what documents they had attempted to destroy, who had assigned them their mission and what they intended to accomplish.
They warned that the incident raised the possibility of “reconnaissance movements or organized security preparations targeting peaceful Lebanese areas or specific individuals.”
The two urged the interior and defense ministers and judicial authorities to expand the investigation, establish individual and organizational responsibility, and prosecute anyone implicated by the evidence.
The Free Patriotic Movement, meanwhile, called on security and judicial authorities to complete their investigations and disclose the circumstances of the case to the public as quickly as proper legal procedures allow.
It emphasized that security in Batroun, Bsharri and all other Lebanese regions falls exclusively under the responsibility of the state and its institutions.
The party rejected any security activity outside state authority, insisting that proven violations must be punished without political protection for those responsible.
At the same time, it warned against exploiting the incident to stoke sectarian or regional tensions or deepen divisions among Lebanese citizens.
