Army Targets Militants on Outskirts of Arsal

The army targeted on Sunday militants entrenched in Madinat al-Malahi area on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

According to the state-run National News Agency, the army targeted with heavy artillery suspicious movements by armed men in Madinat al-Malahi area in Arsal's Wadi Hmeid village.

Security sources told LBCI that the military targeted a bulldozer for gunmen in the area.

The mountainous area has long been a smuggling haven, with multiple routes into Syria that have been used since the conflict began in March 2011 to transport weapons and fighters.

Eight Lebanese troops were killed and several others were wounded in bloody clashes that erupted between the army and gunmen in the Tallat al-Hamra clashes on Friday “when terrorists attacked a military surveillance post in Ras Baalbek.”

Syria's civil war has regularly spilled into Lebanon, with jihadists briefly overrunning the eastern Lebanese town of Arsal in August after running gun battles with the army.

The jihadists withdrew after a ceasefire, but took with them several dozen hostages from the Lebanese army and police, four of whom have since been executed.