Lebanon army hit by IED in Arsal
Five LAF soldiers were injured by the blast.
Now Lebanon/November 06/15
BEIRUT – Terror has struck Lebanon’s Arsal yet again, this time when a blast targeted an army unit on patrol in the troubled northeastern border town.
At midday Friday, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated as a Lebanese Armed Forces patrol moved through the Ras al-Sirj area of Arsal, less than 24 hours after a deadly explosion went off outside meeting of Muslim clerics in the town’s commercial market.
Lebanon’s state National News Agency reported that ambulances rushed to the site of Friday’s attack “after news that 5 soldiers suffered light wounds.”
The LAF rushed to the scene of the blast, with soldiers working to move the damaged military vehicle after evacuating the wounded troops.
Army troops also conducted raids on a refugee encampment near the bombsite, the NNA said in a later report.
The attack on the LAF comes after a blast went off Thursday during a gathering of sheikhs, mostly Syrian, at the Qalamoun Scholars Committee headquarters in the town’s commercial market.
The religious committee—which focuses on Syrian refugee issues in the border town—has served as a mediator seeking the release of Lebanese servicemen captured last year in Arsal by the Al-Nusra Front.
Qalamoun Muslim Committee chief Sheikh Othman Mansour, a Syrian national, was killed in the attack that left at least three others dead.
The nature of the blast remains unknown, with the NNA reporting that the blast ripped through a motorcycle outside the Committee’s headquarters. Lebanon’s state news agency earlier said that the remains of a purported suicide bomber had been taken to a local hospital.
Arsal has borne the brunt of the spillover of Syria’s conflict into Lebanon, with a number of violent attacks rocking the border town that hosts more refugees than Lebanese nationals.
In past years, Syrian helicopters conducted a number of airstrikes on the outskirts of the town, which has also been hit by rocket attacks. Militants have also conducted ambushes against the Lebanese army in the town.
LAF troops in the town have been targeted by IED explosions on three previous occasions last year, killing 5 soldiers and injuring a number of others.
The most serious violence to beset Arsal came in August 2014, when Syrian Islamists conducted a cross-border rain, taking dozens of security personnel during 5-days of fierce battles.
Hezbollah redeploying troops to Damascus fronts
Now Lebanon/November 06/15
BEIRUT – Hezbollah has been redeploying its fighters from Zabadani to the frontlines around Syria’s capital where regime forces have pressed unsuccessful offensives against rebels, according to pro-opposition media. All4Syria reported Friday that Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian National Defense Force militiamen were redeploying “en-masse” from their positions in the mountains west of Zabadani, where Hezbollah lead a campaign against rebels from July to late September. A rebel source in the western Qalamoun border region told the outlet that the troops were headed toward battlefronts in eastern Ghouta—where the Army of Islam rebel group cut the Damascus-Homs highway northeast of Damascus—as well as Darayya, where the regime earlier in the week launched a failed bid to storm the town.
The bloody fighting in Zabadani came to an end on September 24 in a deal that called for rebels holding out in the town to withdraw in exchange for safe-passage for civilians out of a besieged Shiite enclave in the Idlib province. All4Syria’s source gave a detailed account of the Hezbollah withdrawals carried out in the towns of Bloudan and Al-Maamoura that overlook Zabadani. “23 Microvans, 14 large Kia vehicles, 16 large Toyotas, two small closed top cars, three Inter trucks, 3 ZiL vehicles full of men, 15 taxis carrying Hezbollah and NDF members and four large transport vehicles [each] big enough for over 200 passengers,” left the two western Qalamoun towns for Damascus, according to the report.
The party’s force that withdrew from the western mountain area included “37 Jeeps, 16 Toyotas, 7 130mm field artillery units, several BMP vehicles and a rocket launchpad,” he said. Another pro-opposition outlet, 7al.me, carried a similar report Friday, saying that “Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces have withdrawn from the Ayn Ramleh checkpoint and adjacent positions in Zabadani’s western mountains.”“They have withdrawn from their positions in the western mountain towards the Al-Saroukhiya checkpoint at the town’s entrance and the capital Damascus to make up of the lack of manpower on other fronts,” a media activist who identified himself as Ahmad Yabrudi told 7al.me. Yabrudi said that the regime had also “withdrawn a large number of its forces and militias from Bloudan, Maamoura and the area around Zabadani to Al-Saroukhiya and Damascus.”
