Beirut, Lebanon – On October 5, a minivan was stopped at a checkpoint in Dahr el-Baydar between the Bekaa Valley and Mount Lebanon region. Lebanese security forces discovered the car was carrying hundreds of kilos of explosive materials, including TNT and C-4, according to Lebanese officials. On Thursday, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah released a statement saying that the explosives belonged to Hezbollah which had demanded their return, along with the release of the two people detained in the vehicle.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam pointed out that C-4 explosives had been used in previous assassinations, although investigators have not established that the seized shipment was intended for such an attack. Hezbollah has never admitted carrying out assassinations, despite repeated accusations against it, including the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. On March 2, when Hezbollah responded to ongoing Israeli attacks for the first time in over a year in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Salam and his government banned the group’s military activities.
Salam’s coalition government includes two Hezbollah ministers who opposed the decision and the group has repeatedly defied the government’s declaration by continuing to fight Israel. Fighting has largely subsided since June, when Beirut and Tel Aviv signed a US-administered trilateral framework agreement. Under the deal, pilot zones would be established as part of a phased process in which Israel would eventually withdraw its troops and the Lebanese Army would enter to disarm Hezbollah.
However, the programme has had complications from the start as Israel never had a presence in some of the areas included in the pilot zones, according to locals, and Israeli demolitions continue in the areas under its occupation. In recent weeks, Lebanese security forces have uncovered a number of operations aimed at smuggling explosives. Lebanese officials have condemned the smuggling operations and Salam has vowed to investigate the incidents, particularly the Dahr el-Baydar incident.
Since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990, Hezbollah has been the principal Lebanese force to keep its weapons. This was ostensibly part of a national security formula of “the army, the people and the resistance” aimed at opposing Israeli occupation – which continued until 2000 before resuming in 2024 – and aggression, while the country was also under Syrian hegemony. That changed last year when President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Salam came to power.
The Hezbollah allied al-Assad regime in Damascus had just fallen, cutting off a powerful land route of weapons and financing from Tehran. The regional power dynamic appeared to be shifting towards a decrease in Iranian power and more influence from the United States and Israel, leading Lebanon’s leaders to announce that all non-state weapons would come under control of the state. Despite Hezbollah’s opposition to the new leaders’ decrees, the Lebanese Army went about disarming Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon.
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