Lebanon Says Only Its Army Gets to Carry Weapons Now

Lebanon's top diplomat drew a hard line Sunday: from now on, only the national army carries weapons on Lebanese soil. Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji made the declaration in Montreal, Canada, during a meeting with the Lebanese community there, according to Breaking The News.

Rajji said Lebanon will no longer accept armed groups operating outside the army, and warned that no outside party gets to negotiate or sign agreements in the country's name. He described it as Lebanese diplomacy going back to being fully Lebanese. It's a blunt restatement of state authority at a moment when plenty of actors, regional and local, would rather it stayed vague.

The statement lands in a rough stretch for the region. The same outlet reported Houthi strikes on Riyadh and Saudi Aramco facilities, condemnations from Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Qatar, and a tanker fire near the Strait of Hormuz. In Lebanon, the question of weapons outside state control has haunted politics for decades, with Hezbollah long the dominant armed force beyond the army's command.

Rajji also raised resuming the direct air route between Lebanon and Canada, a link that would matter to the large Lebanese community in Montreal and beyond. No timeline or mechanism was offered for either the disarmament position or the flights.

So what happens next is the open question. A declaration from a diaspora hall in Canada is easy to make and much harder to enforce back home, where the armed landscape has resisted state control for years. For now, Lebanon's foreign minister has put the position on the record, unambiguously.