by dailystar.com.lb Hanan Khaled| The Daily Star

Lebanese politicians Monday denounced the quadruple suicide attack that killed at least six people and wounded 19 in a northeastern Lebanon border town at dawn, expressing solidarity with its residents. Four Lebanese soldiers were among the wounded in the suspected ISIS bombings in the predominately Christian village of Al-Qaa.

"Once again the hand of evil and disloyalty extends to Lebanon by targeting innocent civilians," Defense Minister Samir Moqbel said in a statement. He emphasized that all security agencies in Lebanon "are ready to stand united to defend the land of the nation, to confront the terrorists and to pursue and foil their plans to ignite sedition in the country."

Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil told reporters after he inspected the site of the attacks that the village has been “defending Lebanon for the past few years... Al-Qaa has been repelling terror attacks targeting the country.” Bassil warned that the threats posed by the attack shouldn’t be leniently addressed, citing previous reports that extremists are seeking to reach Lebanon’s coastal areas to target other countries.

“Lebanon is defending the world similarly to how Al-Qaa is defending Lebanon,” he added.

ISIS has been seeking to declare an Islamic emirate in Lebanon to serve as a geographical extension of the group by setting up cells in the northern areas of Tripoli, Dinnieh, Akkar and a part of the Bekaa Valley.

“It’s an open war with terrorists... We shouldn’t forget that they are still occupying a part of our land [on the outskirts of Arsal],” the FM said.

iloubnan.info

The QS University Rankings for 2016 included 10 Lebanese universities among 100 ranked universities in the Arab region, Byblos Bank's Lebanon This Week reported.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) was the highest ranked institution in Lebanon and the second highest ranked in the Arab world, with an overall score of 98.5 points out of a maximum of 100 points. It was followed by the Lebanese American University (LAU) in 15th place (71.5 points), Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth (USJ) in 17th place (69.7 points), the University of Balamand in 28th place (55.3 points), the Lebanese University in 31st place (49.7 points), Notre Dame University in 38th place (42.8 points) and the Beirut Arab University in 39th place (42.6 points). Also, the survey ranked the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik within the 61-70 range regionally (30.8 points), while it ranked the Hariri Canadian University (26.7 points) in the 71-80 range and Université Antonine (23.1 points) in the 91-100 range.

The Lebanese University and USJ's rankings improved by three spots year-on-year, the largest increase among the top 10 universities in Lebanon, while AUB's rank was unchanged year-on-year. In contrast, the rank of the Beirut Arab University regressed by seven spots from the 2015 survey, followed by NDU (-5 spots), the University of Balamand (-3 spots) and LAU (-1 spots). Further, the rank of the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik was in the 51-60 range and the rankings of the Hariri Canadian University and Université Antonine were in the 81-90 range last year.