Lebanese Army soldiers exchanged gunfire with smugglers near the Lebanese-Syrian border on Friday in the second such incident this week, security sources said. No casualties were reported. The smugglers, who had reportedly passed into Lebanon from Syria, fled after a 10-minute gun battle, and no one was arrested, officials said. Lebanese soldiers then used bulldozers to close off illegal smuggling routes.The clashes occurred at around 11 a.m., when an army patrol that was working to block illegal smuggling routes came under fire in the Lebanese village of Suweiri, about 5 kilometers from the Syrian border, Lebanese officials said on condition of anonymity. Witnesses told The Daily Star that security forces raided homes in the town and arrested three people suspected of carrying out smuggling operations across the frontier.
Trade in cigarettes, whiskey, household and electrical appliances, diesel and gasoline has been rife for years between the two countries. In a similar incident on Tuesday, a Syrian smuggler was killed in a clash between the army and a group of traffickers on Lebanon's side of the Syrian border. An army patrol was carrying out a regular tour in the Yabse area, 100 kilometers southwest of Beirut, when eight traffickers on two agricultural tractors opened fire in its direction. The fight claimed the life of Wahid Fadlallah Saqaan, while the seven others managed to escape into Syrian territory.