Gunmen fired on a Lebanese government checkpoint near the Syrian border on Tuesday, killing three soldiers, the state-run National News Agency said. The attack comes amid escalating tensions in Lebanon linked to Syria?s conflict, in which rival Lebanese groups have taken sides.
The fighting in the volatile Lebanon-Syria border region also comes just hours after the European Union decided not to extend an arms embargo on Syria, enabling member states to send weapons to help Syria?s outgunned rebels and step up the pressure on the government of President Bashar Assad to seek a negotiated settlement to the 26-month-old conflict.
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Lebanon?s official news service said the pre-dawn shooting was at a roadblock near the predominantly Sunni town of Arsal, in hills about 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the border. The army said in a statement it?s investigating the attack and its troops have launched a massive search for the gunmen.
The Lebanese are divided over Syria?s civil war, with Shiite militant group Hezbollah fighting alongside Assad?s troops while large numbers of Sunnis back the opposition. Clashes between factions backing the opposing sides in the Syrian conflict have been raging in Lebanon?s northern city of Tripoli for days, raising fears that the Syrian violence spilling over into Lebanon will re-ignite the sectarian war that devastated the country before it ended in 1990.
In Brussels, EU member states decided late Monday to allow an arms embargo on Syria expire on Saturday. While none of the block?s 27 members have any immediate plans to send arms to the rebels, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the decision ?sends a very strong message from Europe to the Assad regime.?
The move is aimed at forcing Damascus to participate in good faith at the prospective ?Geneva II? talks next month. The meeting is part of a joint U.S.-Russia initiative.
Hague spoke after an all-day meeting of foreign ministers Monday that laid bare EU hesitation on feeding arms into a civil war that has spread to neighbouring countries and threatens to become a regional war if the opposing sides ? Assad?s regime and the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition ? remain unwilling to compromise.
Also on Monday, Sen. John McCain, a proponent of arming Syrian rebels and a fierce critic of Obama administration policy in Syria, crossed into Syrian territory on Monday to meet with anti-government fighters.
Washington and many of its European allies have been reluctant to provide rebels with more sophisticated weapons for fear they might end up in the hands of the radical Islamic factions, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, a group that has been the most effective fighting force on the opposition side.
Syrian crisis began in March 2011 as peaceful protests against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for more than 40 years. The uprising turned into a civil war after some opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown on dissent.
More than 70,000 people have been killed and more than five million Syrians fled their homes, seeking shelter in neighbouring countries or in other parts of Syria.
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