Heavy fighting has erupted in northeastern Lebanon over the weekend between the major Islamist factions in the Syrian Civil War, ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, who fought on the outskirts of the town of Arsal, which is housing tens of thousands of refugees.
Reports from the area suggest at least nine ISIS and seven Nusra fighters were killed in the weekend fighting, and local Sheikh Mustafa Hujeiri, seen as close to Nusra, is said to be trying to broker some sort of local truce between the two sides to end the fighting.
ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front have years of acrimony fueling these fights, dating back to ISIS’ attempt to absorb Nusra and become the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq and Syria, an attempt which led to ISIS’ ultimate split from al-Qaeda.
Since then, the two have fought over territory in Syria repeatedly, fighting which only really ended when their respective territories no longer had a common border. Even now, Nusra is said to be trying to establish mergers with other Islamist outlets to try to more directly compete with ISIS.
Both are keen to carry out strikes in Lebanon, and have a presence in Arsal, but this close proximity to one another seems to have boiled over into another round of fighting.
one slight nitpick with these articles, the map shown is almost always a generic map of Syria or Lebanon which never shows a localized map which contains the area or town which the article is writing about…
It ought to be an editor’s rule that a map marks the place mentioned. If the author or editor themselves can’t do that, then don’t run a map, because the readers won’t know either.
Some time today, Jason Ditz will file his 20,000th news piece for Antiwar.com.
If Jason has to customize every map with every article to show whatever small town it might happen to refer to, that will presumably cut into his productivity in a big way.
If you’re interested in being available 24/7 to provide these custom maps that you want to see on, say, a 15-minute per article deadline, or in contributing the money to hire such a person, hit the masthead and contact Angela Keaton or Eric Garris. I’m sure they’ll be glad to greet new and enthusiastic volunteers and/or donors.