BAALBECK, Lebanon: Three Lebanese soldiers were killed by armed men at a checkpoint in eastern Bekaa Valley near the country’s border with Syria.
Two soldiers died in the firefight on Tuesday early morning near the town of Arsal while the third one succumbed to injuries later in hospital, a source in the Lebanese military reported.
The Lebanese media reported that the attackers stormed the checkpoint in a Hummer car, overpowering and killing the soldiers there. They took arms from the killed troops and used their vehicle to flee back across the border.
The killings on Tuesday come days after Lebanon’s militant movement Hezbollah pledged more support for the government of Syria in its fight against the rebel forces.
Both the Syrian army and Hezbollah troops are currently engaged in an operation at the Lebanese-Syrian border aimed at capturing the area from rebels and their allies and cutting down the flow of arms and fighters. The border Syrian town of Qusair is in the focus of the fighting.
