REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIRUT -- Lebanon's Interior Minister Nouhad Mashnouk said Wednesday the Sunni militants on offensive against Iraqi security forces do not operate in his country at present, but warned a future security risk owing to the porous borders with neighboring Syria.

In an interview with the Daily Star, he said he does not believe the al-Qaida splinter group which calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) exist on the Lebanese side.

"But I cannot say they don't exist on the Syrian side. So, we have to worry about this, that anyone can move from Syria into Lebanon, and it doesn't necessarily mean it will happen through the legal borders," he added.

Worrying about the developments in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, the Lebanese security forces have gone on high alert, and adopted a series of preventive measures, which included Army patrols near the eastern borders with Syria and on the outskirts of the town of Arsal in search of gunmen and terror suspects.

"We are looking around, and let's say are on alert over this matter. But until now we are on the safe side and everything is under control," he told the English-language newspaper.

Machnouk dismissed the possibility of the ISIL's advances in Iraq has emboldened Lebanon's extremist Sunnis to resort to armed action.

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