Lebanese security forces arrested five alleged Hezbollah members on Tuesday night in the mountainous area between the Bsharri and Batroun districts in northern Lebanon, Lebanese and Israeli media reported.

Source: Naharnet

An Internal Security Forces patrol spotted the men in a vehicle acting suspiciously and stopped them, according to the reports. Journalist Riad Tawk of Beirut Time reported that the suspects had documents containing lists of locations across the Koura, Batroun and Bsharri districts, as well as names and references to weapons, including sniper rifles. Reports said the men began destroying documents and maps as officers approached, before being taken into custody. Those details come from that reporting and have not been independently verified.

Source: NewsCord (Naharnet / Jerusalem Post / Al-Monitor)

Salam: 'The era of impunity is over'

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said after the arrests that 'the era of impunity is over' and vowed a strict investigation, saying it would be pursued to the end and would have 'no boundary other than the rule of law', Naharnet and the Jerusalem Post reported. Al-Monitor carried the same pledge under the headline 'Lebanon detains Hezbollah members as PM pledges end to impunity'.

Questions over what the men were doing in the north

Lebanese Forces MP Ghayath Yazbek said, in remarks reported by Waradana, that four of the five men came from southern towns — Khiam, Tyre and Bint Jbeil — and asked what they were doing in the Batroun-Bsharri area, far from the Israeli border. Yazbek claimed the documents discussed military plans for the Koura, Batroun and Bsharri areas. That is the MP's claim, reported here as such; investigators have not publicly confirmed it, and Hezbollah has not commented in the reports reviewed.

Background: the state's monopoly on arms

The arrests land in the middle of Lebanon's push for a state monopoly on weapons and the disarmament of Hezbollah. In October, a military prosecutor charged 13 people over a shipment of nearly 800 kilograms of explosives seized at the Dahr al-Baidar checkpoint, which Hezbollah acknowledged owning and said was intended for use against Israeli forces. President Joseph Aoun this week defended the army and security forces, saying extending state authority means a state monopoly on arms.

What happens next is the investigation Salam promised: whether prosecutors charge the five men, what the seized documents are found to contain, and whether the case stays with the security services' investigators or moves to a military court, as in the explosives case.