An Iranian commercial plane underwent rigorous security checks at Beirut airport on Thursday night after it was suspected that it was transporting money to Hezbollah, causing uproar among passengers.
Authorities at Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport had told the Mahan Air flight that it would need to undergo inspection or it wouldn’t be allowed to land, amid suspicions that it was carrying financial aid to the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group.
Lebanese caretaker Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi confirmed during a talk show on Thursday night that the plane was being searched.
The airport’s security requested to search diplomats' bags to check whether they were carrying cash. The diplomats initially rejected this request, resulting in long delays in disembarking passengers from the plane.
Tensions gradually escalated as people on board grew frustrated over the wait, prompting Lebanese army forces to intervene and restore order.
Lebanese authorities had reportedly given strict instructions to deport the Iranian diplomats if they had continued to refuse inspection of their bags.
The airport security service indicated that any "suspicious shipments" would be prevented from leaving the airport premises, stressing that political contacts would be made with Iranian officials to warn them of the consequences of illegally transferring money to Lebanon.
The plane was eventually given the greenlight in the late hours of Thursday after the diplomats' bags were searched, finding that they did not contain anything unlawful.
"An Iranian diplomat refused to have bags searched upon landing in Lebanon tonight. After a long dispute, Tehran sent a cable to Beirut saying two bags had documents and cash to pay operating expenses at the Iranian embassy in the country. They were let go per Vienna Convention." Washington-based Lebanese journalist Joseph Haboush .
Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that it received a written letter from the Iranian embassy in Beirut clarifying that two diplomatic bags which initially had not been allowed to pass contained documents and cash for embassy operational expenses only.
The incident led to outside the airport and across Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Stringent measures
During an official visit to Beirut in November, Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his delegation were also stopped at Beirut airport by security officials who asked to search them.
They refused at first on the grounds that they were diplomats.
The airport has seen stringent security measures in recent months in the wake of the Hezbollah-Israel war which ended in late November. Iranian planes had not been allowed to land at Beirut airport during the war as Israel said they could be transporting weapons to Hezbollah.
Lebanese authorities have vowed to tighten measures at the airport, the Port of Beirut and border crossings, which Israel says have been used by Hezbollah to move Iranian arms into the country.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire agreement which ended the war in late November, the Lebanese government must gradually disarm Hezbollah and all other armed faction and take full control of the country’s borders.
Heavy Western sanctions have targeted Hezbollah and its main backer, Tehran, in recent years.
Analysts say Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon is waning after the heavy blows it faced during the war, with much of its senior command structure eliminated and a large part of its arsenal destroyed.
The group did however manage to put up stiff resistance to Israel during the war, killing dozens of Israeli soldiers.
Its main weapons supply line via Syria has also been cut off after the Assad regime in Damascus was overthrown last month.