Five Syrians arrested in Army raids in north Lebanon

The Lebanese Army raided Syrian refugee gatherings in the seaside neighborhood of Mina in north Lebanon’s main city of Tripoli Tuesday, arresting five persons for staying in the country illegally, Lebanese Daily Star reported.

Security sources told The Daily Star that troops inspected apartments occupied by Syrian refugees in Mina, as part of routine checks aimed at ensuring that they possess legal papers and residence permits.

Five Syrians were apprehended for lacking any identification documents, the sources said.

Lebanon, host to more than 1.3 million refugees, the highest number out of Syria’s neighboring countries, has enforced more stringent security checks on Syrian refugees to curb incidents of violence spilling over from the raging conflict next door.

Scores of Syrians have been arrested across Lebanon for staying in the country clandestinely, raising suspicion of possible links with jihadi militant groups, including Nusra Front and ISIS, which clashed with the Army in the border town of Arsal in August.

In relevant development, fierce fighting between Hezbollah and Nusra Front fighters left nearly two dozen combatants killed, according to security sources.

Hezbollah acknowledged the deaths of eight fighters and said it would hold funeral processions later Monday for at least two that were killed in the Bekaa Valley town of Labweh.

Security sources said at least 20 Hezbollah fighters were wounded in the clashes that broke out Sunday evening outside the village of Brital. They were taken to hospitals in Baalbek, particularly the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikmeh, the sources told The Daily Star.

They said 14 Nusra Front jihadists were killed in the clashes that ebbed around 3 a.m. Monday.

Hezbollah captured five Nusra militants, the sources said.

They said Hezbollah fighters repelled Nusra Front attacks on the party’s two main posts – Ain al-Saaa and Mihfara – on the farthest edge of Brital Sunday afternoon.

"All the fighting is taking place inside Syrian territories as militants are seeking to gain a foothold in Qalamoun, where their presence is weak," the source said. "They have been launching intermittent attacks."

The Nusra Front, however, claimed that it had been attacked by Hezbollah. The group tweeted Monday morning that jihadists had repulsed a Hezbollah attack on the outskirts of Nahleh, a village northeast of Baalbek, killing and wounding dozens of fighters from the "resistance and rejectionist party."

The rebels have been caught in the no-man’s land between the two countries since the Syrian regime and Hezbollah regained the majority of Syria’s Qalamoun region earlier this year.

The porous border region had served as a major supply line for the Syrian rebels over the more than three and a half year old civil war, but the rebels increasingly came into conflict with the Lebanese Army after being pushed out of Qalamoun.

Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian civil war alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces has been cited by the rebels as their justification for their attacks on Lebanon, which have grown over the last year, culminating in the fierce August battles in Arsal that ended with 19 soldiers dead and more than 30 troops and policemen being taken hostage by the Nusra Front and ISIS. (The Daily Star)