Syria closes Lebanon border after clashes

Beirut/Tripoli: Lebanese media say Syrian troops have closed a border crossing into Lebanon amid heavy clashes with rebels in the area.

The state-run National News Agency says the fighting across the frontier in Syria on Thursday was so intense that stray bullets and rockets landed on the Lebanese side, in the region of Wadi Khaled.

The agency had no word on whether anyone was killed in the fighting but at least five wounded were brought across the border into Lebanon for treatment.

The report also says Syrian troops closed the Bqaiaa crossing because of the fighting.

The closure comes after forty one wounded Syrian rebels crossed a river into Lebanon on Thursday after the Syrian army ambushed the fighters as they tried to flee a besieged area, two Lebanese medical sources in the area said.

Eight more rebels either arrived dead or succumbed to their wounds after managing to escape Syria into the northern Lebanese area of Wadi Khaled, said the sources, a hospital employee and a medic who requested anonymity.

Lebanon’s border area has been steadily sucked into Syria’s three-year-old conflict as President Bashar Al Assad’s forces attack nearby rebel bases.

Lebanese frontier towns have been used by rebels to recuperate but have also been attacked by Syrian helicopters and rocket attacks.

On Thursday, Syrian army shells hit villages in Wadi Khaled as the rebels escaped, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

The rebels were fleeing the area of Al Hosn in Homs province, which the Syrian army has surrounded, the medical sources said. Syrian state television said its army had killed 11 “terrorists” trying to escape Al Hosn.

Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah has sent fighters into Syria to support Al Assad, while Syrian rebels and their Sunni Lebanese allies have set off bombs in predominantly Shiite areas and fired rockets at Shiite towns.

More than 140,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has become increasingly sectarian as rival regional powers have backed either Al Assad or the rebels who oppose him.