Syrian fighters, Hezbollah militia clash on Lebanon soil

BEIRUT: Syrian fighters fought with gunmen from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia in a deadly clash on Lebanese soil overnight, a security official and local media said yesterday, in the latest sign Syria’s civil war is spilling over the country’s borders.
It was the worst clash on Lebanese territory since the outbreak of the conflict more than two years ago. Fighters have threatened to attack Hezbollah bases in Lebanon, and on Saturday 18 rockets and mortar rounds hit Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold.
In the night between Saturday and Sunday, Hezbollah apparently encircled and ambushed a group of Syrian fighters and allied Lebanese fighters whom they suspected of rocketing Baalbek a day earlier, said the Lebanese security official. He said a Hezbollah man and several fighters were killed in the clashes in a remote area between Baalbek and the Syrian border.
The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, seen as sympathetic to the Syrian regime, quoted Lebanese security officials as saying 17 fighters from Jabhat Al-Nusra were killed in the fighting.
Meanwhile, low-flying Israeli warplanes again violated Lebanese airspace, overflying the capital Beirut, the eastern Bekaa Valley and the city of Baalbek, Lebanese security officials and the state-run news agency said.
Also yesterday, a car bomb killed at least three people in a suburb of Damascus. The blast targeted a police station and killed nine Syrian soldiers.