Report: Syrian Armed Groups Ready to Advance into Lebanon through Arsal
Syrian armed gunmen are planning to open a front in Lebanon by invading the northeastern border town of Arsal and advancing into al-Qaa, Ras Baalbek and other nearby villages.
According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyassah, the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Free Syrian Army have been entrenched for the past two months and a half on the mountains overseeing the Lebanese Bekaa on the porous Syrian-Lebanese border.
The daily quoted a security figure close to a Mustaqbal Movement official in the Bekaa as saying: “ The armed men can easily recruit around two thousand fighters from Syria's southern Daraa province.”
In December, six Lebanese troops were killed and a soldier was injured as militants staged an ambush against an army patrol in the outskirts of the town of Ras Baalbek on Syria's border.
The clashes came in light of a report published in the British Telegraph newspaper that a British team had saved Ras Baalbek from a "massacre" by advancing Islamic State (IS) militants through constructing a network of military watchtowers in the town.
In recent months, Syria-based IS and al-Nusra Front fighters have fought several battles with Hizbullah and the Lebanese and Syrian armies in the border region.
IS and Nusra militants briefly overran the northeastern border town of Arsal in early August. They abducted a number of troops and policemen as they withdrew from the town.
Four hostages have already been killed by the two groups, and the country has been on edge for months over the fate of the remaining soldiers and policemen.
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