He was referring to a financial crisis that has gripped Lebanon for two years and plumbed new depths this month as supplies of imported fuel ran out, forcing even essential services to scale back or shut down and sparking numerous security incidents.
The meltdown has deepened international concerns about Lebanon, a country pieced back together after a 1975-90 civil war and still deeply riven by sectarian and factional rivalries.
Ibrahim noted the impact of the crisis on personnel at General Security, an intelligence and security agency whose responsibilities include control of Lebanon’s border crossings. “The crisis that Lebanon is going through may be prolonged. Your duty is steadfastness and standing as a barrier to protect your country and your people.” he told staff.
Were the state to fall it would fall on everyone “and everyone will be in the eye of chaos and in the line of tension,” he said.
Ibrahim also noted the crisis’ impact on other security agencies and on the nation in general.
The UN secretary general on Thursday called on Lebanese leaders to form a new government urgently - something they have failed to do for a year during which the currency has collapsed by more than 90% and poverty has soared. Foreign donors say they will provide assistance once a government is formed that embarks on reforms to address the root causes of the collapse.
President Michel Aoun, the Maronite Christian head of state, and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, a Sunni Muslim, have yet to agree on a new cabinet more than one month after Mikati was picked to form one.
Mikati took on the task after Saad al-Hariri, Lebanon’s leading Sunni, abandoned a nine-month-long bid to form the government, saying he could not agree with Aoun and accusing him of seeking effective veto power in cabinet. Aoun, an ally of Shia group Hezbollah, has denied this, and blamed Hariri.
Lebanon is heading towards complete collapse unless action is taken to remedy the crisis caused by its financial meltdown, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, the state’s most senior Sunni Muslim cleric, warned yesterday. The economic collapse that began in 2019 has plumbed new depths this month, leading to fuel shortages that have crippled even essential services and causing numerous security incidents involving scrambles for gasoline. The warnings are some of the strongest yet from Lebanese officials about the gravity of the situation. Lebanese politicians have failed to agree on the government even as the currency has lost more than 90% of its value and more than half of Lebanese have fallen into poverty. Even vital medicines are hard to find. Cancer patients who have been told their treatment cannot be guaranteed protested on Thursday. “We fear that ... the patience of Lebanese will run out and that we will all fall into the furnace of complete chaos, manifestations of which we have started to see in all fields,” Sheikh Derian said during a Friday sermon in comments carried by the National News Agency. “The matter requires serious and immediate treatment,” he said. “Otherwise we are truly going to what is worse and to complete collapse,” he said, noting clashes that have flared up in some parts of Lebanon. President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, a Sunni Muslim, have yet to agree on a cabinet to replace the government that quit after last year’s Beirut port explosion. The already difficult process was overshadowed yesterday by a row between Aoun and a group of former prime ministers, including Mikati and Saad al-Hariri, over the probe into the explosion.
The former premiers have objected to attempts by the investigating judge to question the caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab, seeing it as an unjustified move against a post reserved for a Sunni and accusing the presidency of steering the probe. Aoun said the accusations were unfortunate.
Grand Mufti Derian, who generally aligns with the former prime ministers in politics, urged Aoun to try to save what was left his term.”Otherwise we are going to ... to the bottom of hell,” he said, recalling Aoun’s warning last September that Lebanon was going to hell if a government was not formed.
Major General Abbas Ibrahim
