Jamaa Islamiyya Protests Detention of Five Syrians
Some 100 Lebanese Islamists opposed to the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad held a protest on Monday to denounce the arrest of five Syrians by the Lebanese security forces.
The Syrians were arrested on Sunday, after they crossed into Lebanon via Mount Hermon on the border between Lebanon and Syria, a security official told AFP.
They are currently detained at a police station in Rashaya al-Fokhar in the southeast Lebanese region of Hasbaya, and the authorities are preparing to repatriate them to war-torn Syria, the official said.
"We will not allow them to be deported, they are refugees and we want the authorities to set them free so we can give them refuge," a supporter of Sunni Islamist group, Jamaa Islamiyya, told AFP, as he protested at the entrance to the police station.
Assad's regime has frequently accused Lebanon of allowing "terrorists" to cross illegally into Syria via the small Mediterranean country's northern and eastern borders.
Lebanon and Syria share a border measuring some 290 kilometers (180 miles) and in many areas, the frontier has not been demarcated.
Since the start of the anti-regime uprising in Syria there have been frequent cross-border shootings and shellings into Lebanon, according to Lebanese security officials.
Lebanon has twice officially protested territorial violations committed by Syria, which for 30 years ruled Lebanon politically and militarily.
On Saturday, the Lebanese army said Free Syrian Army rebels attacked one of its posts near a village sympathetic to the anti-Assad revolt, causing no casualties.
The U.N. has registered more than 66,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
Source: Agence France Presse
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