Twenty-two Lebanese
soldiers were missing, possibly taken hostage, the army announced, and a
military source said 16 others had been killed since the clashes with
rebel fighters erupted on Saturday near the Syrian border.
The United Nations
Security Council on Monday called on Lebanese politicians to “preserve
national unity” and “refrain from any involvement in the Syrian crisis.”
The 15-member Council “expressed support
for the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces in their
fight against terrorism”.
Analysts said the violence could be
contained in the short term, but warned an aggressive military response
could stoke tensions and worsen the clashes, which have also killed
three civilians.
On Monday, the army deployed
reinforcements and fired mortar rounds at Syrian-held positions in the
mountains around the eastern border town of Arsal, saying it was
advancing.
Residents fled en masse after the fighting continued overnight.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam pledged
there would be “no leniency towards the terrorist killers and no
appeasement for those who violate Lebanon’s territory and harm its
people”.
In a statement after a cabinet meeting,
he also urged France to speed up delivery of weapons for the Lebanese
army being purchased under a $3bn deal financed by Saudi Arabia.
The violence in the eastern Lebanese
region began on Saturday afternoon, after soldiers detained a Syrian
man, Imad Ahmed Jumaa, who the army said confessed to belonging to
al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, al-Nusra Front.
Rebels angered by the arrest opened fire
on army checkpoints and stormed a police station, killing two civilians
and capturing several police.
A third civilian was shot dead by a sniper on Sunday.
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