Nusra Front militants killed in Hezbollah ambush in Syria’s Qalamoun-Al-Manar TV

Al-Manar TV said on Wednesday that several Islamist militants were killed in a Hezbollah ambush in Syria's Qalamoun region along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

 

The Hezbollah-run Al Manar TV added that “all members of a group of the Nusra takfiri [militants] were killed in an ambush carried out by the resistance between the Syrian outskirts of the Lebanese towns of Arsal and Nahleh.”

Hezbollah has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country's civil war. The group's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed to clear the border area of takfiri militant groups that have carried out attacks on Lebanese soil.

Nasrallah said on Sunday that Hezbollah was willing to increase its presence in Syria when needed and that the fight was part of a wider strategy to prevent groups like Nusra Front, and the ultra-hardline Islamic State, from taking over the region.

He added that an offensive his group is leading in the mountainous region of Qalamoun along the border between Syria and Lebanon would last "until the borders are secured".

Lebanon was torn apart by its own civil war from 1975 to 1990, and officials have voiced concerns about cross-border offensives that they warn could drag the smaller country further into the Syrian conflict.