Suicide Bombers Attack Army During Raids on Syrian Encampments

Seven soldiers were wounded at dawn when suicide bombers blew themselves up while the army was staging raids on two encampments of Syrian refugees in al-Nour and al-Qarieh in the northeastern border town of Arsal, the Army Command-Orientation Directorate said in a statement released on Friday.

“At dawn, the Lebanese army was on a mission to inspect the Syrian refugee encampment of al-Nour in Arsal when a suicide bomber blew himself up close to the army patrol. The attacker was killed and three soldiers were seriously wounded,” said the statement.

“Another three suicide bombers blew themselves up later on, without causing injuries to the troops. The terrorists have also detonated a bomb explosive,” it added.

The army seized four improvised explosive bombs which were immediately detonated by a military expert.

Separately, “an army patrol was on a similar mission in an encampment for displaced Syrians in al-Qarieh, when a suicide bomber blew himself up without inflicting harm on the troops. Another militant threw a hand grenade at the army patrol which left four soldiers slightly injured,” said the statement.

The raids, which are aimed at "arresting terrorists and seizing weapons," are still ongoing, the army command said.

It later said that one of the suicide bombers blew himself up among members of a displaced family killing a two-year-old girl.

A security source told VDL (93.3) that “investigation has shown that most of the detainees were IS militants among which are prominent IS leaders.”

Lebanon is host to more than one million Syrian refugees, roughly a quarter of the small Mediterranean country's population. About 70,000 Syrian refugees live in encampments in and around Arsal.

The Lebanese army has stepped up its crackdown on fighters connected to the Islamic State militant group in the remote area close to the Syria border.

A military source said that troops made a number of arrests.

"The objective of the operation was to arrest a wanted man and it was this man who was the first to blow himself up," the source said.

Militants from IS and Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front, are entrenched in rugged areas along the undemarcated Lebanese-Syrian border and the army regularly shells their posts while Hizbullah and the Syrian army have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the border.

The two groups briefly overran the town of Arsal in August 2014 before being ousted by the army after days of deadly battles.

The retreating militants abducted more than 30 troops and policemen of whom four have been executed and nine remain in the captivity of the IS group.