Lebanese army kill 2 arrests 27 militants in border town
BEIRUT: Lebanese soldiers killed twogunmen and arrested at least 27 suspected militants including acommander from the Islamic State group in a raid in the town ofArsal near the border with Syria a security source onWednesday.
The source said that among those detained was Abu Bakral-Raqqawi a local commander of the Islamic State group andthree high profile insurgents.
He said the army carried out the raid after receivingintelligence that Raqqawi and others were in the northeasterntown which has suffered from a spillover of violence fromnearly five years of conflict in Syria.
Nusra Front and Islamic State fighters have staged regularincursions into Arsal from the barren hills just outside thetown. They overran the town briefly in 2014 before withdrawingto the hills after clashes with the army.
But security sources say that Nusra and Islamic State groupscontinue to have a strong presence in the town where thousandsof Syrian refugees live in dire conditions. They say sometimesthe insurgents descend into the town at night to threaten orkill those who oppose them.
Nusra Front freed 16 Lebanese soldiers and policemen inDecember in exchange for the release of jailed Islamists. It hadcaptured the soldiers during the Arsal incursion in 2014.Islamic State is believed to be still holding nine soldiers itcaptured.
Reuters