Syria refugees threat to Lebanon's security – interior minister

PanARMENIAN.Net - Lebanon's interior minister said on Thursday, February 27 that refugees who have fled from the war in neighboring Syria have become a threat to Lebanon's security because of the suspicion that many are in fact rebel fighters, according to Reuters.

Residents in northern Lebanon say that rebels pose as refugees to cross the border, and are arming members of the refugee community in Lebanon to fight in Syria. The minister, Marwan Charbel, has said Syrian rebels have set up training camps in Lebanon.

In addition, members of the rebel Free Syrian Army have used Lebanon's mountainous terrain to regroup before staging attacks on the Syrian army across the poorly demarcated border.

"What is concerning me is the security situation," Charbel said at a joint news conference with the United Nations Development Programme. "Who is exploiting (the Syrian refugees)? Who is arming them? We are not controlling them."

Although the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is almost two years old, the flow of refugees is accelerating and the number in Lebanon has doubled in the last three months, to 320,000.