BEIRUT — The Lebanese army said on Wednesday it had killed five militants in a clash at the border zone with Syria, the second such confrontation in less than a week. A security source identified the militants as members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, one of the insurgent groups fighting in the Syrian civil war. An army statement said they were targeted as they attempted to cross between the Lebanese town of Arsal and the nearby border zone and identified one of the dead as a Syrian. Militants from the Nusra Front and Daesh (the so-called IS) group last year staged an incursion into Arsal that triggered several days of lethal battles with the army. The Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside President Bashar Al-Assad in the Syrian war, is mounting a joint operation with the Syrian army aimed at driving both Nusra and Daesh from the border zone. — Reuters
