British assistance for the Lebanese army in the mission to secure the eastern border with Syria.
The Lebanese army is responsible for the mission of securing the eastern border with Syria. However, this security is selective, to say the least. Hezbollah, like everywhere else in Lebanon, is doing at this border as it pleases.
Britain recently shipped 100 armored vehicles to the Lebanese army, to strengthen stability on the border with Syria. These vehicles are Land Rover RWMIK, designed for patrols and worth £1.5 million ($2 million). The vehicles were a donation to Lebanon.
In recent years, Britain has helped deploy 4 brigades on the border with Syria, building more than 75 observation towers and supplying 350 Land Rover vehicles.
Also, Britain has trained more than 11,000 Lebanese troops “to prevent infiltration of extremists and smugglers from Syria.”
Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria stretches for about 250 miles, with five official crossings, the main of which is the “Al-Mazna” crossing located on the Beirut-Damascus road.
Beyond that, there are dozens of informal crossings used for smuggling weapons, fuels, and other goods of almost any kind.
These smugglings are mostly controlled by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army does not have the power to stop them. Smuggling of goods is a significant source of income for Hezbollah.
