Army Foils New Infiltration Attempt by Syrian Militants in Arsal
The army on Thursday repelled an infiltration attempt by Syrian gunmen in the outskirts of the Bekaa border town of Arsal, after repulsing two attacks on its posts in the area overnight.
"The army clashed with a number of Syrian gunmen and repelled an infiltration attempt in the Arsal area of al-Masyada," state-run National News Agency reported in the evening.
Earlier on Thursday, the army said it confronted an armed terrorist group that plotted to attack a military post on the Arsal's outskirts.
The military said in a communique that the jihadists sought to attack the post after midnight Wednesday. But soldiers engaged in gunbattles with the terrorists, forcing them to withdraw from the area.
The army's post in al-Masyada in Arsal's outskirts also came under fire from a nearby encampment for Syrian refugees, said the communique.
The military responded to the sources of fire and worked on pursuing the assailants to arrest them and refer them to the judiciary, it added.
Jihadists from al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group are entrenched on the outskirts of Arsal on the porous Syrian-Lebanese border.
They engaged in a bloody fighting with the Lebanese army in August and took with them hostages from the military and police.
The extremists later executed three of them and threatened to kill more if the Lebanese authorities failed to meet their demands, including the release of Islamists jailed in Roumieh.
G.K./Y.R.
H.K.
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/150439 |