The Lebanese Forces on Tuesday stressed that the probe into the murder of LF’s Jbeil coordinator Pascal Sleiman should be “clear, transparent, public, frank and accurate with its details and circumstances.”

“Until the results of this investigation get release, we will consider that Pascal Sleiman fell a victim of a political assassination operation,” the LF said in a second statement on the incident.

It added that three allegedly Hezbollah-related factors had contributed to the crime.

“The first factor is represented in Hezbollah’s presence in its current form under the excuse of resistance or other alibis. This illegitimate presence of Hezbollah has led to paralyzing the role of the state and the effectiveness of this role, which has allowed for the presence of armed gangs and armed chaos,” the LF said in its statement.

The party also blamed Hezbollah for the state’s weak control of its border with Syria and for “castrating the state’s judicial, security and military institutions through barring them from working in certain areas or on certain cases or in any matter related to any person belonging to the Axis of Resistance.”