The Lebanese army announced today, Thursday, that it had seized a quarter of a ton of highly explosive TNT, after it was smuggled across the border from the Syrian side, without being able to arrest the smugglers, according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.
The army stated, in a statement: “As a result of monitoring and surveillance operations at the northern and eastern borders, an army unit seized about 245 kilograms of highly explosive TNT,” in addition to “four explosive devices and an eight-pack detonator, while they were smuggled from Syrian territory into Lebanon.”
According to the statement, “the smugglers fled towards Syrian territory immediately after an army patrol arrived at the place.”
Since the overthrow of the rule of ousted President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, the Lebanese and Syrian sides have been working to control smuggling across their common border, which extends over a length of 330 kilometers, including weapons and the narcotic Captagon pills.
From time to time, Damascus announces the seizure of weapons shipments that it says were on their way to Lebanon for the benefit of Hezbollah, which, in turn, denies any relationship with them, and reiterates that it has no presence or activity on Syrian territory.
The security file was at the forefront of secret discussions between Hezbollah and the Syrian side under the auspices of Türkiye, during which they exchanged “messages of calm.” The party provided guarantees to stay away from the Syrian scene on the security and military front, and not to support groups of the former regime, in exchange for a Syrian pledge not to intervene militarily in Lebanon within any plan related to disarming the party within Lebanese territory.
Reuters quoted six informed sources as saying that representatives of the Syrian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah held direct talks in Turkey, in an attempt to calm tensions between the two sides, noting that the meeting is the first known of its kind between the two parties, which have long been adversaries.
While Hezbollah is discreet about any information about this file, Lebanese sources familiar with the party’s movement told Asharq Al-Awsat that the meeting is the second, after the first “ice-breaking” meeting between the two parties, when their representatives met in Istanbul on the sidelines of the “Covenant for Jerusalem Conference” hosted by Turkey last December. The party’s delegation was headed by Hezbollah’s Arab and international relations official, Ammar al-Moussawi.
The sources said: “The Turkish side is still continuing to mediate between the two parties, and communications through Turkey were activated after US President Donald Trump’s threats that Damascus is capable of accomplishing the mission of disarming (Hezbollah),” in which he said that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is capable of accomplishing the mission.
The sources said that the second meeting referred to by Reuters was held in the first third of last September in Turkey, and no security or military figure in the party participated in it, adding that the two meetings “do not rise to the level of negotiations or understandings, but rather fall under the framework of messages between the two parties with Turkish mediation.”
Security priorities
Security files top the list of priorities for both parties, in light of security concerns and Syrian concerns about any support provided by the party to the remnants of the former regime, or any intentions to reactivate the southern Syrian front against Israel. The party denies in repeated statements its interference in Syrian affairs, or its support for any groups in southern Syria.
The sources said that the Turkish side “worked to contain the concerns raised previously by President Trump’s statement regarding Syrian intervention inside Lebanon against Hezbollah, and provided guarantees not to interfere at all in Lebanese affairs, in exchange for guarantees from the party to completely distance itself from the Syrian scene, not to obstruct security measures on the border with Lebanon, and pledge not to provide any support of any kind to groups affiliated with the former regime.” She pointed out that the party “publicly confirms that it is completely distancing itself from the Syrian scene, and that it does not interfere in it at all, and is committed to its internal positioning.”
Try to calm down
These data coincide with what Reuters reported from its sources, which included two Syrian officials, an American official, and a senior Lebanese security source close to Hezbollah. The six sources said that the meeting, which was held last month, at the invitation of the Turkish security and intelligence services in an attempt to reduce tension, included representatives of Hezbollah and officials from the intelligence services and the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Turkish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, and the US State Department did not respond to Reuters’ questions about the meeting. Hezbollah's media office also refused to comment.
Both Hezbollah and the Syrian government have indicated their openness to holding talks with each other. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani said in July that Damascus was open to meeting with the group. A month later, Hezbollah's Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said in a speech broadcast on television that the party did not mind meeting with the Syrian leadership.
Resolve tension points
The American official, the two Syrian officials, and the Lebanese source said that the meeting focused on resolving the points of tension between the two parties, and it went well.
One of the Syrian officials stated that the two sides agreed that there is no hostility between them, and that Syria assured Hezbollah that it would not intervene militarily in Lebanon to disarm the group.
The official said that Syrian officials, in turn, asked Hezbollah to help stop cross-border smuggling attempts and dismantle its remaining sleeper cells, especially in southern Syria.
According to Reuters, the Syrian official said that Hezbollah representatives did not provide a direct response to the request to stop weapons smuggling and dismantle its cells in Syria, but they pledged not to interfere in Syrian affairs. The Lebanese source, who has direct knowledge of the meeting and its results, commented that the two sides “have made great progress on security issues.” The source said: “(Hezbollah) wants to protect its back,” referring to fears of a Syrian attack on the group inside Lebanon.
Both the Syrian official and the Lebanese source stated that no final agreement had been reached, and that there was no plan to issue an announcement. The Lebanese source explained that communication between the two parties via Türkiye began about two months ago.
Iran was absent from the meeting
Three of the sources said that Türkiye, a major ally of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, was the one who pushed for the meeting to be held due to its desire to participate directly in those efforts. But Iran, Hezbollah's main backer, was absent from the meetings.
The Lebanese security source said that Hezbollah participated in the meeting with Iran's knowledge, but Tehran was disappointed not to participate directly, and because Sharaa has so far rejected the idea of establishing any direct relations with it.
The source stated that this disappointment was the main reason for not reaching a final agreement, and for not issuing an announcement about the meeting.
Lebanon is less than three weeks away from holding the eighth round of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations under American sponsorship, but this time at the military level, and will be held in Florida, on the twentieth of October. That is, a week before the Knesset elections are held in Israel on the 27th of the same month, with the date set to be fixed in the coming hours. This is what the President of the Republic, General Joseph Aoun, was informed of by the American sponsor of the negotiations.
The Florida meeting is par excellence military, and Lebanon is represented by a delegation headed by former Ambassador Simon Karam, in the presence of Lebanon’s Ambassador to America, Nada Hamada Moawad, and a military team headed by the Director of Operations at the Army Command, Brigadier General George Rizkallah. The meeting is sponsored by the head of the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, American General Joseph Clearfield, and comes in the context of confirming the continuation of negotiations in light of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s intersection with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when he met him in Washington, to proceed with the implementation of the “Agreement.” Framework,” which means, as a source accompanying the negotiations told Asharq Al-Awsat, blocking the way for Hezbollah by separating the Lebanese track from the Iranian-American “memorandum of understanding,” and not keeping Lebanon suspended from it.
Prisoners file
The source revealed that the Lebanese delegation will re-present the file of Lebanese prisoners to Israel, given that its previous release of five Lebanese and Syrian prisoners came from outside the list that Lebanon submitted in the previous round of negotiations.
He pointed out that the Lebanese delegation will propose, as before, the consolidation of the ceasefire, including the cessation of hostilities, and the expansion of the “experimental zone,” by annexing cities and towns that are still occupied, in addition to removing the “verification mechanism” of the army’s deployment there from the tensions by naming the team charged with ensuring that it is free of “Hezbollah” weapons and its fighters.
Activating the “Framework Agreement”
The source said that he hopes that the meeting will activate the “framework agreement,” lest it be limited to passing an American message of continuing negotiations, instead of agreeing on a set of steps that are supposed to be at the forefront of the meeting, and which are intended to bring the agreement out of stagnation by stopping Israel’s bulldozing of towns located along the Yellow Line, and its systematic destruction of homes, even though most of them were leveled to the ground and only a small number of them remain that the Israeli army uses to reside in after converting them into assembly centers for its military units equipped with cameras to ensure that no Hezbollah members infiltrated it. Although the source rules out Israel expanding the security zone after it withdraws the fighting units, on the other hand, it is betting on American intervention at the appropriate time to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from expanding it to impose a fait accompli, if he assesses that he needs it to ensure his return to head the government.
He believed that Netanyahu's withdrawal of the "Golani" Brigade and adopting the strengthening of the defensive lines along the security zone occupied by his army means, from the point of view of the security source, that he is making it a priority to strengthen his control over it, in addition to closing it with fire on the towns located on the front edge north of the Litani River overlooking its south, after he took control of the "Ali Al-Taher" hills and is applying fire to the surrounding towns.
He stressed that Lebanon expects from the meeting that Washington will put pressure on Netanyahu. Not only to prevent it from expanding the security zone, but also to target the heights located between Iqlim al-Tuffah and Jabal al-Rayhan and oblige it to adjust the rhythm of its army in a way that leads to a reduction in the level of violations and mobile attacks between the south of the Litani and its north, while Hezbollah refrains from responding to them despite the threats issued by its Secretary-General Naim Qassem from time to time, and it remains under the roof of the nerves of its popular incubator.
Effects of a peace meeting - Rubio
The source stopped short of Lebanon's demand to implement synchronization in the steps between Israel's withdrawal and the army's deployment, in light of the statement issued by the US State Department after the Salam-Roubio meeting, in which it focused on disarming Hezbollah as a basis for achieving synchronization. He said that Lebanon maintains its position of exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state and will not back down from it, no matter how intense the pressure on it from the “party” is, but what it is currently looking forward to is preparing the atmosphere for expanding the army’s deployment and not targeting it from Israel. Because it is not permissible to deploy it while Israel continues to pressure it with fire and target the positions it occupies along the front edge of the north of the river.
He stressed the need to prepare the atmosphere to proceed with the implementation of the “Framework Agreement” in stages. Starting with expanding the Lebanese army’s deployment in locations from which Israel withdraws; Because it constitutes a lever for the government in its response to Hezbollah, which turns its back on the calls and advice given to it to take a lesson from its support for Gaza and Iran, instead of supporting Lebanon’s position to get it out of the crises that besiege it, and the party caused most of them by its monopolization of the decision of peace and war, and its request from the government to bear the consequences of a decision that it has no compunction about.
He believed that strengthening the government's position and providing support to it would weaken Hezbollah, which is betting on the "memorandum of understanding," even though Washington, which is a party to it, is continuing to separate the Lebanese track from Iran.
Hezbollah's options
In this context, the source asked Hezbollah: What is the point of keeping Lebanon dependent on the Iranian-American “memorandum of understanding”? What dialogue does Qassem call for, as long as he links the Lebanese track with Iran, calls for the abolition of the “Framework Agreement,” and clings to his weapons, while the alternative that is positioned under his roof is still struggling with the escalation of the exchange of threats between the two parties that signed the memorandum, and does not take the advice that was given to him to engage in the state’s project and surrender his weapons in implementation of his exclusivity in its hands?
