Similar movements were staged on Friday, where residents of Akkar blocked the roads toward Rahbe and Al-Joumeh at the Mashha intersection, to call for the release of abducted Lebanese soldiers.
Also on Friday, residents of Halba also staged a movement, marching towards the serail of the said town and preventing employees from entering.
A Lebanese Armed Forces patrol came under fire on Thursday (August 28) in the border town of Arsal, and reinforcements were called. Sources told LBCI that the Lebanese Armed Forces secured the release of 4 soldiers reported missing in Arsal, noting that the whereabouts of a fifth soldier remained unknown.
At least 30 Internal Security Forces members and Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers remain missing, presumably kidnapped by the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front militants, in the wake of deadly clashes that erupted in the northeastern border town of Arsal on August 01. Clashes flared up when Syrian gunmen deployed across the region after the Lebanese Armed Forces arrested Imad Jomaa at a checkpoint. The clashes left at least 20 soldiers dead and 86 injured. On Thursday (August 07), a military source stated that a truce in Arsal appeared to be holding and the situation in the border town was quiet. The Muslim Scholars Association had launched an initiative to ensure the return of the kidnapped soldiers and served as a mediator between the gunmen and the Lebanese authorities. Later on, the Association declared that it will suspend all activities to make way for other sides to deploy efforts in this regard. The gunmen had issued a list of demands, which include the release of several Islamist inmates from the infamous Roumieh prison. A demand the interior minister had rejected. Lebanese security officials say the fighters include members of al Qaeda's Syria branch, the Nusra Front, and an al Qaeda splinter group, the Islamic State, which has seized swathes of land in Syria and Iraq.