BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra condemned Sunday Syria’s threat to strike at rebels taking shelter in Lebanon and called on the government to control the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Speaking at an LF rally in Sydney, Australia, Zahra scoffed at the government’s disassociation policy, saying it had failed to protect Lebanon from the repercussions of the 2-year-old bloody conflict in Syria.

Commenting on the Syrian threat, he said: “The first of the government’s duties today is to deploy the Lebanese Army on the Lebanese-Syrian border and control the frontier on both sides.

If the government failed to do this, [U.N.] Resolution 1701 addresses this issue and solves the problem.”

He was referring to the resolution that deployed U.N. troops on the Lebanese-Israeli borders in the south following Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon.

Syrian shelling of villages in north Lebanon has killed a number of Lebanese.

March 14 parties have called for the deployment of the Lebanese Army and U.N. troops along the two countries’ common frontier in response to the attacks.