Syrian Violence Spills Into Lebanon and Turkey
Conflict in Syria burst over the borders into neighboring Lebanon and Turkey on Monday, with one Lebanese cameraman killed, and at least four people, two Syrian and two Turkish, injured in fighting on the Syrian-Turkish border.
The violence, on the eve of the deadline of a fading U.N.-backed deal for Syrian troops to withdraw from cities and cease hostilities against a widespread uprising, provoked strong responses from Lebanese and Turkish officials and heightened already tense regional relations.
The Free Syrian Army: Defected soldiers and civilians make up Syria’s main opposition army group.
The developments came as the U.S. State Department said the Syrian government was trying to “stall for time” with its demand for a written guarantee that opposition forces would disarm before it withdraws troops from cities and towns.
Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati used Twitter to send condolences for the death of Ali Shaaban, part of a three-man crew with Lebanese television channel al-Jadeed, which was filming in the Wadi Khaled area of Lebanon on the country’s northern border with Syria.
The two surviving journalists, Hussein Khrais and Abdul Aziem Khayat, said in interviews with Lebanese media that they were in a car in Lebanon, filming and taking notes, when men in civilian clothes began shooting at them from the Syrian side of the border and continued to fire for two hours. Lebanese security forces then were able to rescue them, the journalists said.
Khrais said in a telephone interview that he was unable to identify whether the attackers were armed opponents of the government of president Bashar al-Assad or Syrian government forces. Mikati said via Twitter that he planned to inform Syrian authorities that he condemned the act, and that the Lebanese army would investigate the incident.
In Turkey, violence broke out as a group of dozens of Syrians - some wounded - sought to become the latest of more than 20,000 refugees to flee across the Turkish border, crossing near the Turkish village of Killis, north of the Syrian city of Aleppo.