The bodies of 3 additional Lebanese soldiers had been discovered Saturday in a battlefield close to the Syrian border, bringing to eight the quantity killed in the newest clashes with Syrian Islamist rebels, authorities said.
The intense gun battles have once again dramatized how violence from the Syrian war, now approaching its fourth year, has migrated into neighboring Lebanon.
The remains of the three soldiers had been identified on the outskirts of the town of Ras Baalbek, in the northeastern Bekaa Valley, where battles raged Friday in between Lebanese government forces and militants who roam the rugged area along the Syrian frontier.
The Army said that its forces had repelled a militant attack on an outpost during 16 hours of gun battles.