Three Lebanese soldiers killed near part of the Syrian border used to smuggle weapons

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[QUOTE](Reuters) - Gunmen killed three Lebanese soldiers at an army checkpoint in the eastern Bekaa Valley on Tuesday before fleeing towards the Syrian border, Lebanese officials said.

It was not clear who carried out the attack, the latest incident in a frontier region which has been increasingly drawn into the violence in neighboring Syria.

The Syrian civil war has divided Lebanon, with most Lebanese Shi'ites supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and many Sunnis backing his Sunni rebel foes, putting the Lebanese army under extra pressure to keep a lid on sectarian tensions.

Most Sunni groups in northern and eastern Lebanon blame the army for hindering their efforts to support rebels in Syria with guns and fighters and at the same time failing stop the Shi'ite Hezbollah militant group from sending fighters to support Assad.

Tuesday's shooting took place before dawn near the town of Arsal, in an area used by Syrian rebels and their Lebanese backers to smuggle arms and fighters into Syria.

The military was searching for the gunmen, who may have fled into neighboring Syria, Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn said.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/28/us-syria-crisis-lebanon-soldiers-idUSBRE94R07Z20130528[/url]