President Michel Sleiman considered as unacceptable the air raids carried out by the Syrian airplanes against targets inside the Lebanese territory.

President Michel Sleiman considered as unacceptable the air raids carried out by the Syrian airplanes against targets inside the Lebanese territory.

"The president of the republic, General Michel Sleiman, considers Syrian air strikes inside Lebanese territory an unacceptable violation of Lebanese sovereignty," Sleiman said in a statement from his office.

The statement added that Sleiman has tasked Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour with sending a letter of protest to Syria over air raids in the northeastern border area.

The official state-run National News Agency said the letter of protest should be aimed at preventing “the Syrian side from repeating such operations.”

Last week, Damascus had warned Beirut that the attitude of self restraint regarding not hitting the armed groups in the Lebanese territory would not go on.

“Large numbers of armed terrorist groups have infiltrated” the Syrian territories from Lebanon, Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Syrian foreign ministry stressed that the “Syrian Army is still practicing self-restraint in order to not hit the gatherings of the armed gangs inside Lebanon to prevent them from crossing into the Syrian territories”.
 “But this will not go to an unlimited end,” the ministry warned.