Syrian government forces have “wiped out” a group of militants who were trying to infiltrate from Lebanon.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said on Thursday that the gunmen were trying to head in the direction of town of Qusayr.

A Lebanese security source said government shelling from Syria wounded nine Syrian militants on the Lebanese border who had fled fighting in their country.

“Nine Syrians were wounded as a result of cross-border artillery shelling from Syria that struck the area of Khirbet Daoud in the Arsal countryside,” the source told AFP.

“There are groups of Syrians, most of them fighters, in the countryside of Arsal” in the eastern Bekaa Valley, the source added.

The militants had “fled from Qalamoun in Damascus province for Lebanon in recent weeks because of intensified fighting between Syrian troops and armed opposition groups.”

The insurgents engaged government forces in fierce fighting near the town of Jousieh near Arsal, security sources told The Daily Star.

The sources said they were trying to offset the government’s offensive against towns and villages in the mountainous Qalamoun region.

BA/BA