Lebanese army plans to carry out 'sensitive missions' amid US-backed Hezbollah disarmament plan

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BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s military will soon carry out “sensitive missions,” the country’s army chief said Friday, in an apparent reference to the Lebanese government’s U.S.-backed plan to disarm the Hezbollah militant group by the end of the year.

Lebanon's military will take necessary steps to ensure the missions' success while preserving peace among the civilian population in the crisis-hit nation, Gen. Rodolphe Haykal said in a statement. Lebanon has a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah as well as Palestinian weapons in the country’s refugee camps.

The Lebanese government asked the army in early August to come up with a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the month. The prime minister's office said in a statement Friday the Cabinet will hold a meeting to discuss the plan on Sept. 5.

Hezbollah’s leadership has vowed not to disarm, saying the national government’s decision to remove the Iran-backed group’s weapons by the end of the year serves Israel’s interests.

“The army is taking major responsibilities at all levels,” Haykal was quoted as saying by an army statement. He made his comments during a meeting with the military’s top generals.

Haykal added that the army is approaching a “delicate stage during which it will carry out sensitive missions and will take all the steps needed to make these missions successful taking into consideration the preservation of civil peace and internal stability.”

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said earlier this month that the government is to blame if the situation gets out of control and leads to internal conflict in the small nation.

Since the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war ended in November 2024 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss its disarmament until Israel withdraws from five hills it controls inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes. Those strikes have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it killed an official with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in south Lebanon. Lebanese state media reported that one person was killed in a drone strike in the village of Sir el-Gharbiyeh.

Haykal was quoted by the army statement as saying that the military is in contact with Syrian authorities to control the border between the two countries.

Before the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December, Hezbollah received much of its weapons from Iran through Syria.