Arsal is a Lebanese Sunni Muslim town at the border where tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have taken shelter, fleeing the war in their homeland. Recently it had been the scene of clashes between gunmen and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Two Lebanese soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb on Friday in the border town of Arsal, the first such attack since Islamist militants from Syria staged an incursion there last month in the worst spillover to date of the Syrian civil war into Lebanon. Islamist gunmen including fighters affiliated with the Islamic State group seized a number of Lebanese soldiers during that incursion. Islamic State militants have killed three of those soldiers since then. The Sunni militants have been demanding the release of Islamists held in a Lebanese jail.