Heavy fighting is being reported on the Syria-Lebanon border as armed conflict escalates between Syria’s new Islamist regime and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist group.
The cross-border fighting broke out over the weekend after the pro-Iranian Hezbollah terrorist group was accused of kidnapping and executing three fighters belonging to forces loyal to Syria’s newly installed President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
“Late on Sunday, Syria’s defence ministry accused Hezbollah of crossing into Syrian territory and kidnapping and killing three members of Syria’s new army,” Reuters reported Monday. “A Lebanese security source told Reuters the three Syrian soldiers had crossed into Lebanese territory first and were killed by armed members of a tribe in northeastern Lebanon who feared their town was under attack.”
The Syrian regime fighters were kidnapped in an area known for Hezbollah activity. “The killings happened just across the border from northern Lebanon,” the Jerusalem Post noted. “This area near Hermel and Qusayr has been infiltrated by the Iranian-backed terrorist group in the past. It served as a staging area for Hezbollah when it intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2012.”
If the reports of Hezbollah’s aggression are confirmed, the Iran-backed terrorist group would be dragging Lebanon into a second war — nearly four months after a devastating armed conflict it provoked with neighboring Israel. The Shia-Islamist terrorist group lost its entire leadership and bulk of its fighting force in that self-inflicted war with Israel.
While Israel has been observing a ceasefire since late November, Hezbollah has been mobilizing and rearming its terrorist forces in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirm.
The Associated Press reports:
Fighting erupted overnight into Monday along the border with Lebanon, Syria’s state media said.This came after the Syrian interim government accused militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah of crossing into Syria on Saturday, kidnapping three soldiers and killing them on Lebanese soil.Syrian News Channel, citing an unnamed Defense Ministry official, said the Syrian army shelled “Hezbollah gatherings that killed Syrian soldiers” along the border. Hezbollah denied any involvement in a statement on Sunday.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said five other Syrian soldiers were killed during Monday’s clashes. Footage broadly circulated online and on local media showed families fleeing the shelling toward the Syrian village of Hermel.Violence has recently spiked in the area between the Syrian military and armed Lebanese Shiite clans closely allied with the government of ousted Bashar Assad, based in Lebanon’s Al-Qasr border village. (…)Early Monday, four Syrian journalists embedded with the Syrian army were lightly wounded after an artillery shell fired from the Lebanese side of the border hit their position on the other side of the border. They accused Hezbollah of launching the attack.Meanwhile, senior Hezbollah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan in an interview with Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television accused fighters from the Syrian side of crossing into Lebanese territory and attacking border villages there. His constituency is the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel province, which has borne the brunt of the clashes.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Syria-based Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have been on opposing sides of the Syrian civil war, with Hezbollah supporting the Iran-backed Bashar al-Assad regime and the HTS fighting to overthrow Assad.
While the Assad regime rapidly collapsed in late December after days of fighting, HTS chief and Syria’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has embarked on a campaign to consolidate his hold over the country. The jihadist fighters loyal to al-Sharaa have been accused of massacring ethnic minorities, including Alawites and Christians.
The regime-loyalist jihadist fighters have also threatened the Druze, the non-Muslim ethnic group concentrated in southern Syria. Israel has vowed to protect the Druze community along the Syria-Israel border.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY