Lebanese army advances in border battle

The Lebanese army advanced on Monday into a border town attacked by militants at the weekend in the most serious spillover of the three-year-old Syrian civil war into Lebanon, and the Beirut government said the deadly assault would not go unpunished.

With army reinforcements arriving in Arsal, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, said there could be no political deal with gunmen identified as members of the Nusra Front and the Islamic State, which has seized parts of Syria and Iraq.

"The only solution proposed today is the withdrawal of the militants from Arsal and its environs," said Salam, the most senior Sunni in the Lebanese government.

Flanked by the rest of the cabinet, Salam accused the militants of seeking to "move their sick practices to Lebanon".

"We confirm that the attack on Lebanese national dignity will not go unpunished," he said.

Lebanon, still rebuilding from its own 1975-1990 civil war, has been buffeted by violence linked to the Syrian conflict, including rocket attacks, suicide bombings and gun battles.

The army said 14 soldiers had been killed, with 22 others missing and 86 injured in the fighting, which erupted after security forces arrested a Syrian rebel commander, Emad Jumaa, on Saturday.

Soldiers advancing into Arsal found the bodies of 50 militants, a security official said. A cleric in Arsal said at least 50 civilians were dead and more were buried in rubble.

More than a dozen other members of the security forces have been taken hostage. The army described the incursion as a long-planned attack.

Rebels said dozens of fighters from Syria's Qalamoun area just across the border had moved to Arsal on Sunday to reinforce gunmen there. Syrian warplanes repeatedly struck the nearby mountainous border area used by the militants to access Arsal.

Efforts by Lebanon's Muslim Clerics Association to strike a deal to end the fighting and secure the release of the captured security forces were halted when their convoy came under fire as it entered the town, five of the clerics were slightly wounded.

"The clerics are now in a hospital in Arsal, their convoy came under fire from an area that is controlled by the army," Mustafa al-Hujairi, a leading Sunni cleric in Arsal, told Reuters.

The militants have been beaten back in the border area in the past year by Syrian government forces backed by Hezbollah. Some 3,000 fighters are estimated to be in the border zone.

Hezbollah forces have deployed near Arsal, and Syrian activists say they are already involved in the fighting. The group has not announced any role. Analysts believe Hezbollah would keep quiet about any involvement to avoid further inflaming sectarian tensions.