Flashpoint in Lebanese town

The violence in Arsal began on Saturday when Lebanese authorities arrested Emad Jumaa. Masked gunmen then stormed a police station and took hostages, demanding his release. Army units then shelled militant positions.

The Lebanese army issued a statement saying it "would not allow any party to transfer the battle from Syria to its land" and was seeking to encircle the intruders. It dismissed reports that seven soldiers had been killed.

Officials across Lebanon's complicated political spectrum condemned the attack.

A commentator for the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, Nabil Boumonsef, described the fighting around Arsal as the "most dangerous development since the eruption of the Syrian crisis" in 2011.

Lebanese security sources said the fighting had also claimed the lives of at least three civilians. The hostages held by rebels included 16 Lebanese security force members.

Porous border

Arsal is often used as a place of refuge for Syrian refugees escaping fighting across the porous mountainous border between Lebanon and Syria.

The Sunni town (pictured in 2013) lies sandwiched between Syrian territory still used by Sunni rebel forces and another Lebanese area largely supportive of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group that fights with forces of Syria's President Bashar al Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said scores of jihadists were killed Saturday in Syria's al-Qalamun area near the border with Lebanon in ambushes by Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters.

Lebanon has been without a president since May because lawmakers have been unable to settle on a candidate suitable to both its main Sunni and Shiite-led factions.

ipj/slk (Reuters, dpa)