October 13, 2026
Security questions have returned to impose themselves forcefully on the Zahle-Dahr al-Baidar road, against the backdrop of the seizure of a car loaded with explosives, in conjunction with the continuing ambiguity surrounding the issue of disrupting the monitoring and control system on this vital axis, which dates back to last March 31, according to what was revealed by the website.
On that date, surveillance cameras extending from Chtoura to Jalala and Mreijat were subjected to an organized and systematic sabotage operation. Masked men riding motorcycles opened fire and destroyed 16 modern cameras belonging to the municipality of Chtaura, in addition to sabotaging 6 cameras in Jalala used by Army Intelligence, and 6 others in Al-Marijat belonging to the Information Division, in a manner that suggested that the primary goal was to disable the monitoring system on the road.
This issue becomes doubly serious today after the explosives shipment was seized, as the destroyed cameras in Chtaura and the vicinity of the Jdita Junction were to constitute a decisive element in tracking the path of the suspicious car, determining its starting point and the timing of its passage, as well as revealing whether it was accompanied by other cars to secure the transportation process.
Although there is no proven link yet between the two files, the continued ambiguity of the identity of the camera vandals requires the security services to reopen the investigation from the beginning, to answer fundamental questions related to the identity of the perpetrators, the motives for targeting these particular points, and whether the goal was to create an undetected corridor for weapons and explosives smuggling operations.
The danger of disabling these cameras is doubled due to their previous effectiveness in revealing the threads of complex cases. Investigations have proven that the recordings taken from them constituted an essential tool in tracking the course of the kidnapping of retired Public Security Captain Ahmed Shukr, and reconstructing the movement of the perpetrators, leading to revealing the involvement of a network linked to the Israeli Mossad in his kidnapping and transfer to Israel.
Therefore, disabling these cameras cannot be treated as just an ordinary attack on municipal or technical property, but rather a direct targeting of what is known as “security road memory.” With more than 6 months having passed since the incident without the perpetrators being arrested or their motives revealed, registering a case against an unknown person is no longer acceptable in light of the recent developments and the appearance of the explosive shipment.
Today, there is a fundamental demand to conduct a serious investigation linking the available recordings, the testimonies of the people, the movement of bicycles and communications, all the way to the route of the seized car, so that the security services prove their seriousness in revealing who deliberately obscured the road, and who benefited from disabling its cameras, and to verify whether other operations had crossed it away from the eyes of the state.
