Lebanon starts offensive to clear border of IS militants
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s U.S.-backed army on Saturday launched its biggest military operation yet against Islamic State militants who in 2014 gained a foothold along the tiny Mediterranean country’s border with Syria.
The long-awaited campaign aims to defeat IS in the group’s border enclave and put an end to a terror threat that has loomed over Lebanon.
By the late afternoon Saturday, the army said it captured 30 square kilometres (12 square miles) and killed 20 IS militants. It said 10 Lebanese soldiers were wounded.
Simultaneously, the Syrian army and its ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah group, are pushing to clear IS militants from the Syrian side of the border, in the western Qalamoun mountain range. Hezbollah has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria since 2013.