Reports published on Thursday revealed that Lebanon’s “Hezbollah” party is building its private telecommunications system in the Rmeileh area, in Mount Lebanon, located at the northern entrance of the southern city of Sidon.
The “Janoubiya” news website reported that Rmeileh residents were “surprised last week by the presence of a technical team extending telephone cables, and using mines dug by the Energy and Water Ministry in the mentioned town.”
According to the residents, members of the team admitted they were from Hezbollah, to later discover that the team was working in the absence of any role from the Interior Ministry.
Sources told Janoubiya that “a leading figure from Hezbollah had telephoned Rmeileh mayor and informed him that the cables must be built without any obstruction.”
The sources said the team was still working at the location.
“They already opened sewage canals and only needed to extend the cables,” the sources said.
According to Janoubiya, Rmeileh residents and the municipality cannot prevent the Hezbollah work, especially that the Energy Ministry is informed about what is happening in the town and have even ordered the resumption of work, after it was previously put on hold.
“Officers from the Information Branch and the Lebanese Army intelligence already visited the location and had taken pictures,” the website wrote, adding that Rmeileh residents are currently waiting for both security branches to interfere, particularly that the digging is considered an infringement on public properties.
General Khaled Hamade, Director of Research & Strategic Studies Center told Asharq Al-Awsat that such activities were part of developing Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and would contribute in isolating the party’s supporters from the state.
For his part, Lokman Slim, a political activist and co-director at UMAM Documentation & Research told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party’s activities in Rmeileh were nothing but a small sample of a larger and hidden telecommunications system extended by Hezbollah in the south, the Beqaa and the southern suburbs of Beirut.”
