Militants kill Lebanese soldier on Syria border

A Twitter account affiliated with the Takfiri group said on Friday that the slaughtered soldier was “the first victim of the intransigence of the Lebanese army."

A Lebanese security source also confirmed the news.

The number of Lebanese soldiers held captive by the militant group is said to be standing at 20.

The Lebanese border city of Arsal was held by the Takfiri ISIL militants for five days, marking the spillover of war in Syria into Lebanon.

On August 8, Lebanese troops entered the city following five days of fierce clashes with the militants.

Violence erupted in eastern Lebanon after soldiers arrested a Syrian man who the army said confessed to belonging to the ISIL. Angered by the arrest, the Takfiri militants opened fire on army checkpoints and stormed a police station in a border area.

Northern Lebanon has been the epicenter of fierce clashes between the supporters and opponents of the Syrian government. The Takfiri militants are said to have infiltrated into Lebanon from Syria’s mountainous al-Qalamoun region.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with the ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently controlling parts of it mostly in the east.

The Western powers and their regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- are reportedly supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country, says the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), calling the figure a probable “underestimate of the real total number of people killed.”

HK