ISF arrests alleged railroad track thieves after surveillance operation

BEIRUT — The Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced Saturday arrested a group of people allegedly stealing tracks from Lebanon’s long-defunct railroad lines after conducting a surveillance operation.

Here’s what we know:

    • In a statement, the ISF said that its Information Branch, an intelligence unit, arrested four individuals, two of them minors born in 2005 and 2007, who were stealing parts of a disused railway line near Deir Ammar in northern Lebanon.

    • The alleged criminals said during their interrogations they were cutting the tracks to sell the iron for money in Tripoli, the statement said, adding that the ISF conducted a surveillance operation in order to conduct the alleged thieves in the act of cutting railway tracks.

    • Another suspect who allegedly helped sell the stolen iron tracks was also arrested, according to the statement.

    • The ISF’s information branch came under criticism from Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a Feb. 3 report for “multiple failures, gross negligence, and procedural violations in four politically sensitive murder investigations in the past two years.”

    • Lebanon’s defunct railways were built in 1895, with 40 stations connecting 200 kilometers of tracks. The 1975-1990 civil war led to the end of the railroad system, with passenger trains last running in 1975, while freight trains discontinued their operations in 1979, with a brief resumption of work in 1984.

    • Despite the railroads not being in use for decades, Lebanon’s government maintains a Railway Administration, which in 2020 was allocated a budget of LL16.2 billion.