BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says government forces have taken full control of a highway in the country’s northeast once patrolled by gunmen.

The army is in charge of all checkpoints on the road linking the towns of Arsal and Hermel near the Syrian border. Members of the militant Hezbollah group used to search cars amid a wave of car bombs that killed scores of people. NNA said after Saturday’s deployment, only troops will be searching cars there.

Meanwhile, the leader of Al-Qaeda has called on Syrian militant groups to determine who killed his representative in the country, a man many fighters believe died at the hands of a rival militia.

Ayman Zawahri endorsed a previous call for Islamic arbitration by Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front over the death of Abu Khaled Al-Suri, who it and its allies say was killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Al-Zawahri called Al-Suri’s killing “sedition” and said that “all Muslims should confront it and form a general opinion against it and against anyone who does not accept the Shariah arbitration.”