Hezbollah, Army pound militant hideouts along Syria border

ARSAL/BAALBEK, Lebanon: Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army pounded militant hideouts along the Lebanese-Syrian border with new ferocity Tuesday, security sources said.

Hezbollah attacked militant hideouts on the outskirts of the eastern town of Nahleh, with the sound of artillery echoing across the Baalbek area, the sources said.

Residents heard the sounds of heavy rocket and gunfire as they became wary of a possible militant incursion.

According to security sources, militants have reinforced their positions on the outskirts of the Lebanese border town after they engaged in heavy clashes with Hezbollah in the area last week.

Last Oct., The Nusra Front attacked two posts on the border with Syria near the Lebanese villages of Brital and Nahleh. At least eight Hezbollah fighters and 14 militants were killed in the clashes that ensued.

Separately, the Lebanese Army opened fire at militant positions in the outskirts of Arsal, several kilometers north of Nahle. Troops were using rockets and heavy artillery to pound militant posts in Wadi al-Ayouni, Wadi al-Khayl, Khirbet Daoud, and Jabal al-Mkhayramiyeh, sources said.

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.