AFP Beirut: Five Lebanese army soldiers were wounded Wednesday when a mortar crashed into their base in the eastern town of Ras Baalbek near the Syrian border, a military source told AFP.

“Five soldiers were wounded after a mortar shell landed inside their base,” the source said, adding that it had been fired by “terrorist groups outside Ras Baalbek”.

“There are no clashes but we are responding now,” the source said.

Militant groups are entrenched in the mountainous border area near Syria and have used the arid terrain to launch attacks on Lebanese security forces.

Earlier this year, five Lebanese soldiers died in clashes with around 200 gunmen who entered Lebanon from the Qalamoun region of Syria.

 

Syria’s civil war has regularly spilled over into Lebanon, with militants briefly overrunning the eastern Lebanese town of Arsal in August 2014 after gunbattles with the army.

The militants withdrew after a ceasefire, but took with them several dozen hostages from the Lebanese army and police, four of whom have since been executed.