The road of Dahr al-Baidar. Photo taken on Aug. 7, 2026. (Credit: Public works ministry)
BEIRUT — The Lebanese Internal Security Forces seized 300 kilograms of explosives from a vehicle at a checkpoint in Dahr al-Baidar in the Bekaa Valley and arrested two people inside the vehicle, a military source told L'Orient Today on Saturday.
The military source said the two men belonged to Hezbollah. However, a Hezbollah source and two security sources contacted by L'Orient Today could not confirm this. The security sources confirmed the seizure of the explosives and the arrests, noting that one of the detainees is from the city of Baalbek and the other from another village in the Bekaa Valley, according to L'Orient Today's correspondent in the Bekaa.
On Saturday afternoon, Minister of Justice, Adel Nassar, said in an apparent reference to the seizure of weapons in Dahr al-Baydar that the "the investigation into the seized explosives, and all related inquiries, will be pursued to the very end.”
"Disarming illegal armed groups, combating terrorism, and pursuing all those who break the law are irreversible processes that will accelerate," he added in a post on X.
The seized explosives were trinitrotoluene (TNT), a high explosive, according to the military source. The ISF handed the two detainees over to the Army's Military Police, which has launched an investigation.
While some media outlets speculated that the incident may have been linked to a planned assassination, the military source said this had not yet been confirmed. The source added that the explosives could also be used to booby-trap buildings amid Israel's ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army has carried out daily demolitions and attacks in southern Lebanon for months despite the cease-fire. Hezbollah halted its attacks in June, except for operations to repel Israeli forces that attacked and later occupied the Ali Taher hills in early September.
Commenting on the media reports, the Hezbollah source said: "It seems that these reports aim to create turmoil in the country. If confirmed, the official parties are supposed to communicate on the issue."
A series of political assassinations targeting political and media figures opposed to the former Syrian regime, an ally of Hezbollah, took place in Lebanon in the 2000s. Although many of the killings remain unresolved, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted three of the four defendants, all of whom had ties to Hezbollah, in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Several political assassinations have taken place in Lebanon over the past 15 years, including the February 2021 killing of intellectual and anti-Hezbollah activist Lokman Slim.
