Army Pounds Militant Positions on Outskirts of Ras Baalbek

The Lebanese army heavily targeted Friday militant posts on the outskirts of the northeastern border villages of Arsal and Ras Baalbek in the Bekaa.

The state-run National News Agency reported that the military targeted with heavy artillery and rocket launchers the positions of jihadists, who are entrenched on the outskirts of the northeastern border town.

NNA said that troops observed the movement of militants near Jdeidet al-Fakha region.

The army had bolstered its patrols in Arsal and other border towns "to prevent any attack on the area,” in light of the intensified battles between Hizbullah and al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front in Syria's al-Qalmoun area.

The party's fighters had tightened the noose around the last remaining jihadist pockets along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Hizbullah, which has said it wants to protect Lebanon "from the jihadist menace", has been fighting in Syria on behalf of President Bashar Assad's regime for more than two years.

Syria's civil war has regularly spilled into Lebanon, with jihadists briefly overrunning 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.

H.K.

D.A.