Army Pounds Militant Posts on Outskirts of Arsal

The Lebanese army targeted on Thursday militant positions and their movement on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

The state-run National News Agency reported that troops used heavy artillery and rocket launchers to pound the posts of jihadists and their movement.

Media reports said that the army also targeted gunmen on the outskirts of northeastern border village of Ras Baalbek in the Bekaa.

Observers fear that jihadists linked to the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front would overrun Arsal if Hizbullah, the Syrian army and the Islamic State group clamped down on it in the Qalamoun battle in Syria.

The Qalamoun region straddles the Syria-Lebanon border and was a stronghold of rebel forces until a major operation by Syrian regime troops backed by Hizbullah fighters last year.

While most of the region was recaptured, opposition militants and jihadists remain entrenched in the area along the porous and ill-defined border.

From there, jihadists have launched attacks inside Lebanon, including in August 2014 when fighters from al-Nusra Front and the IS group briefly overran the Arsal.

The army frequently clashes with the militants in their hideouts near the Syria border.

The Islamic State, which controls several areas in Syria and Iraq, aims to spread to Lebanon as its fighters position in the outskirts of Bekaa towns bordering Syria and the Lebanese army is in adamant efforts to stop their efforts to infiltrate the country.

H.K.

G.K.