Defected Syrian Colonel Arrested in Arsal

The Lebanese Army on Sunday arrested a defected Syrian officer in the Bekaa border town of Arsal.

“Mahmoud Abbas, a Syrian defected colonel and member of the Syrian Revolution Military Council, was arrested in Arsal's Wadi Hmayyed,” state-run National News Agency reported. It said the man was arrested at a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Wadi Hmayyed.

But the army later announced arresting Syrian nationals Omar Mahmoud Othman and Radwan Mahmoud Ayyoush in Wadi Hmayyed.

“As part of the mission of controlling the land borders, army forces in the Arsal area of Wadi Hmayyed arrested Syrian nationals Omar Mahmoud Othman and Radwan Mahmoud Ayyoush for attempting to enter Lebanon illegally,” the Army Command said in a statement.

“The detainees are being interrogated under the supervision of the relevant judicial authorities,” the statement added.

OTV had earlier reported that one of the men was a defected colonel and the commander of the jihadist al-Nusra Front in the Syrian region of Qusayr near Lebanon's border.

Amid the Syrian refugee influx Arsal has witnessed since the eruption of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the Lebanese Army has several times seized cars loaded with arms and ammunition in the town and its outskirts.