Lebanon To Fund Beirut Airport Security Upgrade

The Lebanese government has agreed funding for new safety equipment for Beirut airport, where security gaps have caused concern among senior officials in a city that has suffered bomb attacks by Islamic State.

"The cabinet agreed to secure the funds necessary for airport security apparatus," Information Minister Ramzi Greige said in a statement after a cabinet meeting.

Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Zeaiter last month said the airport needed at least USD$24 million to upgrade its security, including a new perimeter wall and baggage inspection equipment.

Beirut's security concerns have grown more acute since the outbreak of war in Syria gave rise to the militant jihadist group and increased pressure on Lebanon's own sectarian fault lines.

Islamic State and other groups have carried out several bombings in Lebanon in recent years, including a suicide attack in south Beirut, where the airport is located, that killed 43 people in November.

On Tuesday, an explosion in the southern city of Sidon targeted and killed a Palestinian official, evidence of the many different security threats Lebanon faces.

Zeaiter has said Beirut airport remains among the safest in the world, but Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk has compared its security problems to those in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh, where a bomb planted on a Russian plane killed 224 people in October.

"There are security gaps in Beirut airport which must be plugged," he said last month.

On Sunday the police detained two Lebanese employees of an airport service company over contacts they had with "terrorist parties", security sources said, but they were released late on Monday after they were found to be innocent.