![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP_17202375751646.jpg.jpg\")
There will be concerns about civilian casualties if the militants infiltrate Arsal, which is home to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who fled civil war in their country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The militant-held areas are surrounded from all sides leaving them with no place to withdraw to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hezbollah says the border area has been used in the past to launch attacks deep inside Lebanon, including a wave of bombings since 2013 that have killed scores of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2014, militants briefly stormed Arsal and captured more than two dozen Lebanese soldiers and policemen. Al-Qaida exchanged the troops it was holding while nine soldiers taken by IS fighters are still missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attack in the Lebanon-Syria border area came as fighting between two of Syria\u2019s strongest military groups spread in the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib with al-Qaida-linked fighters trying to capture a main border crossing point with Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friday\u2019s fighting between the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham and al-Qaida-linked Hay\u2019at Tahrir al Sham \u2014 Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee \u2014 that is also known as HTS, focused on the Bab al-Hawa crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HTS, a coalition of several insurgent groups, suffered a blow a day earlier after the powerful Nour el-Din el-Zinki faction withdrew in protest against the fighting with Ahrar al-Sham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Observatory said that HTS was not able to capture the border crossing. It added that a convoy of fighters from Nour el-Din el-Zinki and Failq al-Sham headed to the fight with the objective of dividing the two groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group said three days of fighting between the two rival groups left 85 people dead, including 68 fighters from both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The HTC-linked Ibaa news agency said al-Qaida-linked fighters captured a hill known as 106 that overlooks the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, one of the main sources of income for Ahrar al-Sham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahrar al-Sham\u2019s top commander, Ali al-Omar, said in a video released Friday that attacks by HTS are \u201can aggression against the Syrian revolution,\u201d warning that the hand that will try to harm the anti-government revolution \u201cwill be amputated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Syrian army and members of Lebanon\u2019s militant Hezbollah group launched a major ground offensive on Friday aimed at ending the yearslong presence of hundreds of militants in a border area between the two countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":103040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,13,16,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1189],"class_list":["post-66781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"FBGGHVFJ35BAXM6VT2S73AABBQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/2017\/07\/21\/syrian-army-and-hezbollah-launch-attack-near-lebanese-border\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n