The Lebanese Army brought in reinforcements on Monday as part of an advance into a border town attacked by Syrian Islamists over the weekend.<br /><br />Gunmen identified as members of the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic state have already seized parts of Syria and Iraq.<br /><br />On Sunday they killed at least 14 Lebanese troops and injured scores more. Twenty-two others have been reported as missing.<br /><br />The fighting erupted after Lebanese security forces arrested a Syrian Islamist rebel commander, Emad Jumaa, on Saturday.<br /><br />Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam condemned the killings:<br /><br />“There are no political solutions with these extremists who are tampering with Arab societies under oppressive alien religious slogans and who want to move sick practices into Lebanon,“he said. <br /><br />The attack on Arsal was the first major cross border incursion by hardline Sunni militants who are becoming more influential in Syria’s civil war.<br /><br />Since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al Assad, the town of Arsal has become a refuge for fleeing Syrian families.<br /><br />During Monday’s Lebanese military advance, army trucks brought out hundreds of civilians who had been prevented from leaving by the fighting.<br /><br />Lebanon is still rebuilding from its own 1975-1990 civil war and has been hit by violence linked to the Syrian conflict including rocket attacks, suicide bombings and gun battles. <br /><br />There is growing concern in the county that the Sunni – Shi’ite conflict in its neighbour could destabilise Lebanon by inflaming its own sectarian tensions.
