Hizbullah launches Syria border operation

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s powerful Hizbullah group said on Friday its fighters had begun an operation against militants on both sides of the country’s border with Syria.

The operation has been anticipated for several weeks, and comes after Lebanese soldiers carrying out raids on Syrian refugee camps in the area were met with suicide bombings and a grenade attack.

That attack heightened tensions over the presence in Lebanon of more than a million refugees from the civil war across the border. Hizbullah media outlets announced “the start of a military operation to purge Jurud Arsal and Qalamun of armed terrorists”.

Jurud Arsal is a mountainous area around the Lebanese border town of Arsal, which lies directly across from the Syrian Qalamun region. Hizbullah media said the operation had been launched on two axes -- from the Syrian town of Flita and from the southern part of Jurud Arsal, already under the group’s control.

There was intermittent shelling throughout the day on the outskirts of Arsal, but the town itself remained relatively calm, a local source told AFP. A Hizbullah statement provided to AFP confirmed that two of its fighters were killed in the clashes on Friday.

Another source from within the group, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the toll was as high as five. Last week, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, whose fighters have been battling inside Syria alongside government forces for years, warned that extremists in Jurud Arsal were “a threat to all, including the Syrian refugee camps”.

“It is time to end this threat,” he said. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said “the Lebanese army would conduct a planned-out operation in Jurud Arsal and the government gives it freedom (to do so).” But there was little official comment on the Hezbollah offensive, with Lebanese President Michel Aoun saying he was “following the military developments” without elaborating.