|
 Muslim clerics who had been mediating an end to five days of
fighting in Arsal said they would negotiate for the release of
remaining captives held by militants whose incursion into Lebanon
marked the most serious spillover of Syria's three-year-old civil
war into Lebanese territory.
Dozens of people have been killed in the battle between the army and
Islamists from groups including the Islamic State, which has seized
large areas of territory in Iraq and Syria.
"The army is in control today, but the danger has not entirely gone,
especially given that the terrorists have hostages," said Amin
Hteit, a Lebanese military affairs expert and retired army general.
The dead include 17 Lebanese soldiers. A Syrian doctor in Arsal put
the total civilian death toll at 42, while security sources have
reported dozens of fatalities among the militants.
About half a dozen armored personnel carriers mounted with machine
guns rolled uphill toward Arsal on Thursday afternoon, though there
were no signs of fighting. Ambulances sped away on the main road,
where speed bumps had been removed.
Speaking on the road outside Arsal, Abdullah Zogheib of the Lebanese
Red Cross said medics had entered the town in the morning and
evacuated 42 wounded people, mostly women and children.
"Most of them had very serious wounds. They had been shot by
bullets, some in the head, and there were amputees from shell fire,"
he said, adding the situation in town now seemed "normal" and that
people were walking in the streets.
"We didn't see any gunmen. We don't know if they were hiding or if
they just weren't there."
Security officials say 19 soldiers are still missing, presumed taken
by the militants when they attacked Arsal on Saturday in what the
army described as long-planned attack. More than a dozen policemen
were also taken captive.
One of the withdrawing militants told Reuters the fighters pulled
out at dawn and took the hostages with them. "They could be released
later in stages," he said. A security source confirmed the militants
had taken the captives with them.
The mediators from the Muslim Clerics Association on Wednesday
secured the release of three of the soldiers.
"We can confirm that the town is almost free of (the militants),"
said one of the mediating clerics during a televised news conference
speaking on the outskirts of the town.
"Within hours everything will be over."
The Arsal incursion followed major setbacks for the insurgents
fighting President Bashar al-Assad over the border in Syria.
Syrian Government forces backed by the Lebanese Shi'ite group
Hezbollah have driven the rebels out of major towns on the Syrian
side of the border in the Qalamoun mountain range.
[to top of second column] |
Syrian warplanes bombed the border area on Thursday after the
militants' withdrawal from Arsal, a security source and a Syrian
witness in Arsal said.
FIRST MAJOR INCURSION
The taking of Arsal was the first major incursion into Lebanon by
hardline Sunni militants - leading players in Sunni-Shi'ite violence
unfolding across the Levant - which threatens the stability of
Lebanon by inflaming its own sectarian tensions.
Arsal is a Sunni Muslim town at the border where tens of thousands
of refugees have taken shelter from the war in neighboring Syria.
Their refugee camps have been badly damaged in the fighting, Syrian
activists have reported.
A Lebanese security source said the militants appeared to be pulling
out gradually, but the army was still assessing the situation. A
Lebanese political source familiar with the situation on the ground
said some of the militants were still in the town, including Islamic
State fighters.
Advancing soldiers found three policemen alive and well at a clinic
in the town on Thursday, a security official said.
The battle in Arsal, a predominantly Sunni Muslim town, has
triggered unrest in other parts of Lebanon. A bomb exploded near an
army patrol in the northern city of Tripoli, also predominantly
Sunni, killing one person and wounding 11 on Wednesday evening,
security sources said.
Qassem al-Zein, the Syrian doctor at the field hospital in Arsal,
said medics had counted 42 dead civilians since the conflict began,
largely refugees hit by army shelling. Over 400 more had been
wounded, he said.
He said shelling had stopped since the morning, but there was still
some sporadic shooting in some areas. "Some wounded are coming," he
said by phone.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny, Laila Bassam and
Alexander Dziadosz in Beirut; Editing by Toby Chopra and Will
Waterman)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
