BEIRUT: Lebanon needs more international help to fight jihadi forces that have launched a series of attacks against the army and kidnapped security forces, the country's prime minister told AFP.
Tammam Salam, speaking ahead of a visit to France this week, welcomed French arms deliveries due "in the coming weeks", but said his country's military needed more.
Lebanon's army, which has around 70,000 troops and is recruiting 10,000 more, "has showed respectable defence capacity", Salam said.
But "we need a lot more aid for it", he said.
Salam said Lebanon was not in danger of falling to jihadis from ISIS or Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al-Nusra Front.
He dismissed the possibility of "an Islamic caliphate in Lebanon" such as that declared by ISIS in parts of Syria and Iraq.